It wasn’t exactly the warmest welcome he had ever received and Kyros raised his dark brows. In theory, he had known that she wouldn’t be standing there with open arms—but he was still macho enough to be surprised at her coolness. Was she perhaps worried about her parents and their reaction to seeing him? ‘Your mother and father are around?’
‘No. Dad took early retirement from the business and they’re having a new lease of life—they’re on holiday in the Maldives!’ Now why had she told him that?
Kyros’s eyes narrowed. It surprised him to think of a man as vital as her father being retired. ‘And you live here now?’ he questioned. ‘With your parents?’
Perhaps she was being hypersensitive—but now he was making her sound like some sad old spinster who had run home to her parents when her romantic dreams hadn’t quite worked out. Alice laughed. ‘No, of course I don’t live here. I have an apartment in London. I’ve come back for this party.’
‘And you’re still planning on going to it?’
Her lips fell open into a disbelieving ‘O.’ ‘You thought perhaps I’d cancel it once I knew you were coming?’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Why not?’
She wanted to be outraged at his arrogance but how could she be when a tiny part of her had been tempted to do just that? Hadn’t she felt an overwhelming urge to ask Kirsty to get ready at her own house—so that she’d be able to spend a little time alone with the black-eyed Greek she’d never really forgotten?
She’d told herself that it was normal to want to catch up on the lost years. That maybe it would help give her proper closure on their affair once and for all. But all that would have been a lie. There was only one reason why she wanted to spend time with Kyros—and it had nothing to do with talking and everything to do with his dark, sexual allure. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she swallowed.
There was a pause. ‘Ah, but you never did disappoint me, Alice,’ he said softly. ‘Not then, and certainly not now—despite the showgirl appearance.’
He let his eyes drift over her and suddenly Alice wondered why the hell she hadn’t thrown on a silk kimono over the dress. It had been a rebellious gesture to answer the door like this—one intended to demonstrate that she might be almost thirty and unmarried but her figure was as slim and her legs as toned as they had been at university. Yet all it was managing to do was to make her feel vulnerable…naked beneath that candid appraisal which had followed on so quickly from his obvious initial disapproval.
But she couldn’t turn him away, not now. Not only would it make her look foolish, it would hint to Kyros that he still exerted some kind of power over her—and he didn’t, did he? Not anymore. And besides, Alice was curious. You didn’t spend years wondering and aching to know what had happened to the one man you’d ever loved, only to shut the door in his face.
So wasn’t this her opportunity to change the tape? To wipe the bad memories clean and replace them with new ones? To realise that Kyros was just a man and not a god, and that she had moved on. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could do all that?
She stepped back. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.
‘At last,’ he murmured sardonically, and as he stepped into the house it felt like a kind of victory—as he looked around the large hallway which itself was as big as a room.
It was a cosy, English family home—with its books and cushions, its walls studded with paintings and photos and its scruffy, overstuffed sofa. He remembered the first time he had come here and how alien it had seemed—for he recalled envying such an environment, while feeling stifled by it at the same time.
He remembered the home-made cake which her mother had produced. The cups of faintly scented tea in cups so delicate that they were almost transparent. And the dog which had sat at his feet—its liquid brown eyes huge as it silently begged for food.
‘But you mustn’t give him any,’ Alice had giggled. ‘He’s a greedy pig!’
He had fed the dog, of course—as he suspected he had been supposed to all along, for everyone had laughed. Was that some kind of silent test he had passed? he wondered. Some crude initiation test to see whether the dark and macho Greek would be accepted into a family home which was light years away from the dysfunction of his own? For Alice had looked deep into his eyes and smiled and in that moment he had felt…
What?
Danger?
Oh, yes. Along with the certainty that he was getting in too deep—and the even greater certainty that he was much too young to settle down, and when he did it would never be with someone like Alice.
He stared at her now. Beneath the too-heavy makeup she still had the most beautiful pair of eyes he had ever seen on a woman—green and deep as a forest glade. He remembered the flow of her hair like a bright cascade—a waterfall of moonlight over her bare back. He felt the call of forgotten poetry and the hard stir to his groin and he sank down onto one of the battered sofas before it became a talking point.
‘So…what exactly are you doing in England?’ questioned Alice, quickly walking across to the other side of the room and away from his dangerous proximity.
He stretched his long legs out in front of him and watched with a curl of wry amusement as Alice perched herself self-consciously on a piece of furniture as far away from him as it was possible to be. That flash of bare thigh above her stocking top was quite something. ‘I’ve been to a wedding,’ he drawled.
It was the last thing she had expected him to say. Alice’s fingernails gripped the sofa. Kyros and weddings went as well together as water and electricity. And didn’t the very word sound uncomfortably intimate, especially to her, who had once—mistakenly as it turned out—rather hoped to marry him? What an idiot she had been. She stared at him. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘My twin brother Xandros.’
‘Xandros?’
‘You sound surprised.’
Alice shook her head in disbelief. ‘Surprise doesn’t come close to it. I thought your brother was a commitment-phobe—legendary for the number of lovers he had.’
‘So he was,’ he agreed, with a careless shrug. ‘But it seems that even the world’s most restless lovers can be tamed—for now he has met and married a woman called Rebecca—’
‘She’s not Greek?’ Alice interrupted quickly, with a sudden painful pounding of her heart.
‘No. She is English.’ Their eyes met. ‘Just like you.’
No, not like me at all, thought Alice trying not to allow the hurt to show. Kyros had done his best to convince her that their upbringings were too dissimilar for the relationship to work—and that the cultural differences would sound a death-knell to a shared future. Or maybe that had just been him alighting on the perfect excuse to finish a youthful romance that she’d had no desire to let go of. ‘I thought that you and your brother were estranged. That you didn’t speak anymore.’
Kyros raked a hand through his thick dark hair. It was true—he and Xandros had fought all their lives and eventually they had fallen out in dramatic style. His twin had left the island for America and had never returned, both brothers telling themselves it was for the best—and that was how the rift had been born. How black and white things could seem when you were eighteen years old—and then somehow life turned them grey and indistinct.
‘That was a long time ago,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Time heals—and both of us seem to have forgotten what the original row was about. So I thought, why not go to his wedding?’ It had meant a lot to Xandros, or so he had told him just before