Holly Marlowe was different. The supermodels and actresses seemed as glittery as tinsel, cold as snowflakes. Holly was real. She was warm and alive. Her heart shone from her beautiful green eyes. She didn’t even try to guard her heart. He could read her feelings on her face.
And her body…
As they’d danced, he’d watched the tight red fabric slide against her ripe, curvaceous body, and his mouth had gone dry as he’d imagined feeling her naked skin against his own. With his hand against her lower back, he’d felt her hips move, felt the sway of her tiny waist. He’d watched her blush and shiver at his touch, and wondered how innocent she might be. Could she even be a virgin?
No. In this day and age? Surely not.
And yet he’d known then he had to make Holly his, if it was the last thing he did. Which it well could be.
His gaze fell to her pink lips, tracing down to her low-cut neckline, where with each sharp rise and fall of her breath he half expected the red fabric to tear, setting her deliciously full breasts free. He repeated huskily, “I want you.”
Holly gave a sudden jagged intake of breath. “How can you be so cruel?”
Frowning, Stavros pulled back. “Cruel?”
“All right, so I’m just a secretary. I’m plain and boring and nothing special. That gives you no right to—no right to—”
“To what?” he said, mystified.
“Make fun of me!” Her voice ended with a sob, and she turned and fled, leaving him standing alone on the dance floor.
A low curse twisted his lips. Make fun of her? He’d never been more serious about anything in his life. Make fun of her? Was she insane?
Grimly, he turned through the crowd, trying to pursue her. But other people suddenly blocked his path on the dance floor, business acquaintances desperate to ingratiate themselves, women hoping for a shot at dancing in his arms.
He barely knew what he said to them as his eyes searched the crowds for Holly. His heart was racing and his body was in a cold sweat. Symptoms of his condition? His body shutting down?
All the things he’d never get the chance to do…
All the things he’d never thought of…
His eyes fell on Oliver, chatting with a trashy-looking girl by the open bar. As much as he despised his cousin’s boorish behavior, Stavros realized in some ways he’d been just like him.
He’d never cheated or lied to a girlfriend, it was true. But that was hardly an amazing virtue when Stavros’s relationships rarely lasted longer than a month. Whenever the pull of work became greater than the pull of lust, or if a mistress demanded any emotional involvement from him, Stavros would simply end the affair.
For nearly two decades, he’d worked eighteen hours a day, building his tech company. Unlike Oliver, he wasn’t afraid of hard work. At first, he’d only wanted to succeed as a big middle finger to his estranged father, who’d cut off his mother without a penny and excluded Stavros from the Minos fortune. But by the time he was twenty, he’d learned the pleasures of work: the intensity, the focus, the thrill of victory. He’d become addicted to it.
But the truth was, he still wasn’t so different from Oliver. Like his cousin, Stavros had spent all his adult life focusing on money and power and sleeping with beautiful women, while avoiding emotional entanglement. Stavros had just been better at it.
It was a blow for him to realize that Oliver, as weak and shallow as he was, had managed to do something he hadn’t: he’d taken a wife.
Two years younger, and Oliver was already ahead. While Stavros had so little time left…
His eyes narrowed when he finally focused on Holly, speaking urgently with the bride on the other side of the ballroom. “Excuse me,” he said shortly, and began pushing through the crowds, ignoring anyone who tried to talk to him.
He came up behind Holly just in time to hear the bride tell her angrily, “How dare you say such a thing!”
Holly flinched, but her voice was low as she pleaded, “I’m sorry, Nicole, I’m just scared for you…”
“I don’t care what you imagine, or what Stavros Minos says. Oliver would never cheat. Not on me!” Nicole lifted her chin, her long white veil fluttering as her eyes flashed. “You don’t deserve to be my maid of honor. I should have asked Yuna, not you! Better an old college roommate than a jealous old maid of a sister!”
“Nicole!”
“Forget it.” Her sister’s eyes sparkled as coldly as her tiara. “I want you out of here.”
Holly took a deep breath. “Please. I wasn’t trying to—”
“Get out!” Nicole shouted, loud enough to be heard over the orchestra, causing everyone nearby to turn and look.
Holly’s shoulders flinched. She took a deep breath, then slowly turned away. Stavros had a brief glimpse of her stricken face before she walked through the silent, staring crowds.
He turned to Nicole.
“Your sister loves you,” he said in a low voice. “She was trying to warn you.”
“Warn me?” Nicole’s perfect pink lip curled as she lifted her chin derisively. “Excuse me. I’ve never been so happy.”
Stavros stared at her in disbelief.
“Good luck with that,” he said, and went after Holly.
He found her shivering in front of the hotel, hopelessly trying to wave down a yellow taxi in the cold, snowy evening. As Christmas Eve deepened, the traffic on Central Park South had dissipated, leaving the city strangely quiet, tucked in to sleep beneath a blanket of snow, as the stars twinkled in the black sky.
When Holly saw him coming out of the hotel, her expression blanched. Turning, she stumbled away, across the empty street toward wintry, quiet Central Park. When he followed her, she shouted back desperately, “Leave me alone!”
“Holly, wait.”
“No!”
Stavros caught up with her on the sidewalk near an empty horse carriage, festooned with holly and red bows, waiting patiently for customers. He grabbed her shoulder.
“Damn you…”
Then he saw her miserable face. Choking back his angry words, he pulled her into his arms. She cried against his chest, and he felt her shivering from grief and cold.
“I told her too late. I should have seen… I should have warned her long ago!”
“It’s not your fault.” Inwardly cursing both his cousin and her sister, Stavros gently stroked her long red hair until the crying stopped.
She looked up at him, her lovely face desolate, tearstained with streaks of mascara as she wiped her eyes. “I’m not going back.”
“Good.”
She took a deep breath. “Nicole didn’t send you after me?”
Stavros shook his head.
Her shoulders sagged for a moment, then she lifted her chin. “So what do you want?”
He came closer, looking down at her as scattered snowflakes whirled around them on the sidewalk in front of the dark, snowy park. “I told you.”
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. Then she turned her head sharply away. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Just don’t.” She swallowed hard, her green eyes glistening with tears as she looked at him beneath the moonlight. “All right, I was a fool over Oliver. I see now it was just