‘I’m good.’
‘Please?’
‘Does the sight of me undressed disturb you?’
‘It makes it hard for me to think straight,’ she admitted, wishing she could think of a decent lie.
‘That is good.’
‘It is?’
‘The thought of you naked makes it hard for me to think straight too. So, we are even.’
‘You think of me naked?’ Did she have to sound like a breathless imbecile?
The smile dropped. He closed the distance between them and inhaled deeply.
His voice dropped to a husky whisper. ‘All the time. I’ve just thought of you while I showered, imagining you sharing it with me.’
She swallowed. Was he suggesting what she thought he was…?
His lips brushed against her earlobe. ‘Until we are legally married I will have to satisfy myself with memories of our night together in Milan.’
Her skin fizzed beneath the warmth of his breath while heat such as she had never experienced surged through her, settling in the V of her thighs. He stepped closer still and placed a hand on her thigh, close enough that she could feel his erection jut through the cotton of his towel and press against her belly.
She tilted her head back and gazed into his eyes. It was there, that desire: stark, open, unashamed.
What would he do if she were to loop her arms around his neck and kiss him? If she were to clasp his towel and yank it off him…?
He must have read her mind for his lips brushed against her ear again. ‘Anticipation makes fulfilment taste so much sweeter.’
She pulled away. ‘Do you know that from experience?’
A strange look came into his eyes, a half-smile tugging on his lips. ‘Only in a professional sense. I look forward to finding out if it’s as sweet when it comes to us making love again.’
‘I thought you said it would depend on whether I wanted anything to happen,’ she said, her voice hoarse.
‘And it will.’ Now his eyes glittered, no mistaking the feeling behind them. ‘But we both know the anticipation is driving you crazy too.’
While Alessandra stood there, unable to deny what he’d said, too full of the heavy, pulsating thickness swirling through the very fabric of her to think clearly, Christian strode into the bedroom of his suite.
‘So, what did you want to see me for?’ he asked, disappearing from view.
Forcing her brain to unfog itself, she followed him to the door but stopped at her side of the threshold.
She took a moment to compose herself, but that very composure almost fell to ruins when he emerged back in view, now wearing a pair of black boxer shorts that only enhanced his strong physique.
He opened his dressing-room door and disappeared again, re-emerging moments later with a pair of grey trousers on. Looking at her, he slipped his arms into a pale blue shirt. ‘Alessandra?’
‘Sorry.’ She put her hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. ‘I just wanted to discuss the guest list.’
‘Everyone has accepted.’
‘Apart from Rocco?’
He nodded, his mouth tightening.
She watched as he deftly did the buttons of his shirt up.
‘I think you should reconsider inviting your mother,’ she said.
He didn’t react, other than a slight narrowing of his eyes.
‘It doesn’t feel right, us marrying without you having any family there.’
‘You haven’t invited your father,’ he said pointedly.
‘That’s because my father is an alcoholic who likes to pretend I don’t exist. She’s your mum—wouldn’t she want to see her only child get married?’
‘Just drop it. She’s not coming and that’s final.’ He tucked his shirt in and pulled the zip of his trousers up.
‘No. I won’t drop it. If you won’t invite her then can you at least tell me why?’
His mouth set in a forbidding line, he reached for the silver tie on his bed and walked over to the mirror on the wall, his back to her. He met her eye in the reflection.
‘No. I can’t.’
‘Why not? Christian, we’re getting married in three days. You know everything about me and my past—what is so bad that you don’t want me to meet your mother? Are you ashamed of her or something?’
‘Or something about sums it up,’ he said grimly. ‘But, no, I’m not ashamed of her.’
‘Really? Because it looks like you’re ashamed of her from where I’m standing.’
His nostrils flaring, his jaw clenched tight, he knotted his tie. ‘Can you not take my word for it?’
‘I’m sorry, but no.’ This was too important a topic to back down from.
He must have seen something in her reflection that made him read the stubbornness of her thoughts. He shook his head angrily. ‘If it means that much to you, I will show you.’
‘Show me what?’
He straightened his shirt, then turned back to face her. ‘I’ll take you to meet her. You can see for yourself why I don’t want my mother anywhere near our wedding.’
The car came to a stop outside an immaculate two-storey house in a quiet Athenian suburb.
No sooner had the engine been turned off than Christian got out, not bothering to wait for the driver to open the door for him.
The entire drive had been conducted in silence, Christian sitting ramrod-straight, only the whiteness of his knuckles betraying what lay beneath his skin.
It was a demeanour Alessandra had never seen from him before. It unnerved her.
That he’d cancelled his first appointment of the day had unnerved her even more; that, and the grim way he’d said, ‘Let’s get it over with.’
It was with a deep sense of dread that she followed him out of the car and up the small driveway.
A tall, thin woman with short white hair appeared at the door, lines all over her weathered face, her thin lips clamped together in an obvious display of disapproval.
Wordlessly, she turned on her heel and walked back inside, leaving the door open for them to follow.
The house itself was pristine, a strong smell of bleach pervading the air.
There was nothing homely about it. What could have been a beautiful home was nothing but a carcass, sanitised functionality at its best.
If Elena Markos could speak English, she made a good show of hiding it. She made no show of hiding her disdain for Alessandra, refusing her hand when Christian introduced them, and looking through her when Alessandra said, ‘Hárika ya tin gnorimía,’— ‘pleased to meet you’—a phrase she’d practised with the girl who’d brought breakfast to her suite that morning after Christian had grudgingly agreed to bring her here.
They gathered together in the immaculate kitchen, where the stench of bleach was even stronger. No refreshments were offered.
Alessandra might as well have been invisible. All of Elena’s attention was on her son. She was speaking harshly