Greek Affairs: To Take a Bride: The Markonos Bride / The Greek Tycoon's Reluctant Bride / Greek Doctor, Cinderella Bride

When he reached her chin his fingers lingered. Then he grimaced again and bent down to press a kiss to that sleep-softened. too tempting mouth. It quivered as she sighed. He frowned as he straightened and wished the hell he knew what was going to happen next.

Maybe Louisa was right and you couldn’t get five years back. Maybe he was crazy to want to try. They had baggage now.

Too much baggage?

Standing up, he walked into the bathroom to wash the lotion from his hands while he pondered that question.

No answer arrived like a bolt of lightning. No wise whisper of advice arrived from the gods. Walking back into the bedroom, he found that she’d moved while he’d been out of the room, her arms flung up on the pillows and her breasts now fully exposed.

Small, high, firm and tightly peaked by tempting pink rosebuds. And the answer to his question came right there. Not from the gods, not from his own head but from her perfectly shaped and very tempting breasts.

This woman, those breasts, that mouth, the fine-boned, slender body and long legs hidden beneath the sheets—all of this belonged to him.

Fight him as she no doubt would, she was going nowhere, he determined.

The next time Louisa awoke it was to the muffled sounds of voices. Sitting up, she pushed her tangled hair back from her face then took a few moments to look around the room while her foggy brain tried to sort out the events of a day that had brought her finally to this bed.

Then the door handle rattled and with a lurch she snatched at the cover and pulled it firmly beneath her arms. A second later and her brother appeared in the doorway—carrying her bags.

‘Well, talk about luxury.’ Jamie grinned at her. ‘Have you seen this place? When it’s finished it’s going to be the best house on the island!'

Louisa blinked. ‘Wh-what are you doing with my bags?’

‘Andreas said you were too ill to pack them yourself,’ he explained.

Two things hit Louisa at once. One that Jamie was very relaxed about her being here. The other that he seemed to think it was perfectly natural to find her occupying her estranged husband’s bed!

‘Andreas does not have the right to make that decision,’ she said crossly. ‘And since when did you become bosom pals with him?'

Jamie gave a shrug, his long frame hunching slightly as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and the grin disappeared from his face. ‘He told me what the parents did.'

‘He did what …?’ she gasped out.

‘I can’t believe they could all be so—’

‘He had no right to tell you anything!’

‘Well, take that up with him not me,’ Jamie said. ‘Did you know he’s got a brand-new jet-ski out there just waiting for someone to try it out?'

‘Jamie!’ she said in dismay.

A movement by the bedroom door caught her attention. She found Andreas standing there. ‘Pietros is waiting for you,’ he said quietly to her brother.

‘Oh, yeah, right,’ Jamie responded and turned to look at her again. ‘I’m off out for a night on the town with Pietros, so Andreas said it was OK for me to stay on at the hotel.'

Andreas said … Louisa looked at the man himself. ‘Since when do you make decisions about my brother’s sleeping arrangements?'

Jamie looked at her too. ‘You’re not well, sis. Get your act back together and I’ll come and see you tomorrow.'

With that he loped off, all cocky arrogance that further infuriated her when he sent a quick rueful glance at Andreas before leaving an atmosphere behind fit to slice through with a knife.

Andreas was still propping up the doorway, every inch of him as relaxed as a man could be, but Louisa knew it was a front. He was waiting to find out what she was going to say before he decided how to react to it.

And he was still wearing the same pale blue shirt and dark trousers, she noticed, but his hair wasn’t so neat. There was a five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw and his eyes might be hooded but she could see a telling glitter lurking behind the heavy lids.

The main door banged shut behind her brother, the sound echoing right through the house. She moved—Andreas didn’t—and her gaze drifted over to where Jamie had placed her bags. By the look of them, everything she had brought with her to Aristos had been packed up and transported here.

She transferred her gaze back to Andreas. ‘Would you like to explain to me what you’ve told my brother to turn him into your best friend?'

‘The truth,’ he said.

‘Your version,’ she derided that.

‘It is still the truth,’ he countered with a shrug. ‘I refuse to have any more lies spoken about us or by us.'

‘And I have no say in that, of course.’

‘None that I can think of,’ he confirmed. Then it was his turn to release a sigh. ‘Leave Jamie out of this, Louisa,’ he advised soberly. ‘He does not deserve to be dragged into it.'

‘And your family, are they to be dragged into it? Are we about to receive a visit from them so that I can tell them how they’ve been sussed as manipulating liars?'

‘My parents are no longer on the island,’ he informed her, ‘They flew back to Athens this afternoon—at my request.'

‘You mean you’re big enough to bully them too now?’

‘Yes,’ he hissed out, his patience suddenly waning. ‘We have ourselves to sort out before we even start to think about anybody else’s feelings.'

‘Well, that’s a big turnaround from wanting to spill blood!’

His squared chin jutted. ‘I’ve calmed down.’

Lucky you, she thought because she wasn’t feeling calm at all! ‘And I’ve been abandoned—again,’ she sighed, sinking back against the pillows.

‘I am still here.’

‘You,’ she flicked at him, ‘are the problem.’

‘Such an exciting problem though,’ he dared to grin, ‘so stop complaining and tell me how you feel.'

It was when he walked across to the bed and picked up an iced jug of water that a feeling of him having done this before filtered into her head. She went still, blue eyes narrowing as she watched him pour water into a glass then offer it to her.

‘Sit up and drink,’ he instructed.

Flashbacks of being woken up and made to do this several times during the afternoon hit her head, followed by another set of images—of Andreas sitting beside her gently smoothing lotion into her heated skin. That old feeling of awareness shot into play with a vengeance. Her breasts began to grow tight, a telling dampness spreading across a place that made the hairs around it prickle as they stirred in response.

Sitting up very slowly, she took the glass from him. She was beginning to remember all kinds of things that had taken place during the afternoon, like the brush of his mouth on her mouth. Her cheeks began to heat as she sipped the cool water. How far had he actually gone while she’d been comatose? She remembered talking to him, though not what she’d said. She remembered lying here enjoying the soothing stroke of his touch.

Had she allowed him to do more than that? Had she—?