CHAPTER THREE
KIKI PRECEDED HIM into the suite and glanced around. Very grand. Split level. She hadn’t noticed much yesterday—too many other things had been going on. Like a woman critical with shock. Like Stefano reappearing beside her. Like a hundred memories she didn’t want to remember.
She kept her back to him. ‘Must be cosy, sharing with a married couple.’
‘Their suite is very similar. Next door.’ Kiki could hear the smile in his voice. The lock clicked. ‘This is mine.’
Why did she feel there was emphasis on ‘mine’? She squared her shoulders and faced him. Why did he have to look so damned amazing. ‘So let’s have our little conversation and then I’d like to leave.’
He ignored that. The ignoring thing again. He prowled over to the drinks cabinet. Turned to face her and asked mildly, as if they did this every day, ‘Would you like something to drink?’
No, but she wouldn’t mind something in her hand she could fiddle with—or throw in defence.
Kiki circled the plush sofa and sat on an upright armchair. ‘Thank you. Soda water.’
He smiled. ‘You were always so confident.’
She ground her teeth. ‘Until I met you and thought the sun shone out of your tailbone.’
Of course he ignored that too. ‘You always had fire when roused.’ They both heard the echo of a similar word. Was that aroused?
He held out her drink and she took it carefully, so as not to touch his hand. Again his gaze met hers and she looked away. Knew his gaze never left her face. She could tell even with her fierce concentration on her glass.
His voice drifted over her like a wraith, encircling her, pulling tighter. ‘But still there is more. Yesterday you were incredibly efficient. Practised. Calm. Capable. All things I knew you would be.’
She didn’t want to hear this. She wanted out. ‘Why don’t you cut to the chase, Stefano? Why are you here on this ship?’ And, more to the point, ‘Why am I here in your suite?’
He stepped closer. ‘The truth?’
She shrugged, trying hard to disguise the fact she was getting more spooked by the minute. ‘Novel idea, I know.’
He came to stand in front of her chair. ‘I could not forget you.’
‘Spare me.’ Please don’t say that, she pleaded mentally. ‘It took you nine months to figure that out?’ She winced. Unobtrusively she eased back in the seat to create a little more space. Now she could inhale his aftershave, just a wisp, and it was true: the sense of smell was the one true memory.
He looked down. Apparently sincere. ‘I did search for you.’
‘Then you’re not very good at it, are you?’ She’d still been in the same flat for the next five months. Waiting. Hoping he’d at least call back. Until she’d woke up to reality. ‘Tell me. When did this fictitious search occur?’
Thankfully he stepped across to the window that looked out from the stern of the ship and she could breathe again.
The glorious picture window framed the blue of the ocean, the trail of the wash from their ship, and the haze of land off to the east. And the outline of Stefano’s magnificent frame.
‘It was many months before I could begin. Only now, through chance,’ he added more thoughtfully, ‘or fate, have I found your whereabouts …’
He’d waited months! Not in a hurry to find her, then. Four weeks after he’d left she’d discovered she was pregnant. Another fourteen weeks and she’d been desperate for him to call so she could share her confusion, share her joy at the promise of finally feeling as if she belonged to someone, share her fears and hopes with the father of her child. Instead she had been completely alone.
But not as alone as she’d been when her baby had slipped away one silent night. The doctor had said her baby had a cardiac malfunction, a missing part so the growth could not progress, and she had accepted that—with grief, like the lacking in the relationship it had come from. The grief had been worse because in the beginning she had been ambivalent about its coming. Had thought more of the complications than of her own child until it had been too late for fierce regrets.
And the due date was next week.
The ever-present ache squeezed in her heart. It was time to go before her control let her down. ‘Great. Thanks for that.’ She stood, glanced at him up and down. ‘You look well. Don’t seem to be pining. I think you’ll survive.’
He stepped back into her comfort zone. ‘Is Hobson your lover?’
They were standing chest to chest, a pulsing fission of air between then, and she almost missed the question.
What? Where did this guy get off? But stoking up her anger was a good idea. Much better than sadness. Anger made her feel less trapped. Less baited by his need for control at this moment. Less weak.
Flippantly, with an airy wave of her hand, she said, ‘He’s one of them.’
The flare in his eyes stunned her.
‘Then his position has become vacant.’
She blinked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She sat down again in shock. Any other man and she’d think he was joking. ‘You can’t do that.’ Wrong thing to say. She knew it as soon as it was out of her mouth.
He didn’t even have to say it out loud. Of course he could do it. The power of the Mykonides in the Mediterranean had never been in doubt.
Her turn to back-pedal. She’d suspected he had this side, had just never been shown it before. ‘Of course Will’s not my lover.’
Stefano cursed his temper, something he usually had an iron control over, and wheeled away to look over the sea again. The sea was unpredictable today, like his feelings for Kiki, and just as dangerous. More bad behaviour on his part. But despite that he felt his shoulders relax a little. He had not believed Hobson was her lover, but the concept had been gnawing at him since his visit to the ship’s hospital this morning.
So what else had she said that was not true. ‘Is there a man in your life at the moment?’ He could feel the beast within him stir at the thought, and it didn’t escape his notice that he had no right to ask such a thing.
She opened her eyes wide. ‘Is there a man in yours?’
Little witch. ‘Why are you baiting me?’
She glared back at him. ‘Because apologies and good wishes haven’t appeared on the menu and that was what I was promised.’
She had a point. And again he was behaving badly. Why did this happen with the woman he wanted to liaise honourably with?
He paced and came to stop in front of her. ‘I sincerely apologise for leaving without explaining my reasons.’
She nodded. ‘And the phone calls you didn’t return?’
Those he could not remember? ‘I did not get them.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Her tone said she didn’t care any more and she put her glass down. ‘I accept your apology. Thank you for my drink.’ It was untouched.
So that was that. The degree of disappointment seemed out of proportion to what he’d expected. The wall between them was too great for them to part amicably but his expectations had been optimistic. At least he knew where he stood. It was time to move on. To duty.
She stood again. ‘Goodbye, Stefano.’
But as she passed him his hand reached out of its own volition and captured her wrist. Her skin was soft and supple and so fragile. She froze and lifted her eyes to him. Limpid pools. He’d forgotten how her emotions