A Perfect Man: International Billionaires IV: The Greeks (23 page)

The warm, fuzzy happy feeling inside her slid away. “What?”

“Time for me to ask a question?”

“That was a question right there.” She straightened her spine. “My turn again.”

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair once more. “Go ahead.”

Keeping it light was for the best, yet how could she possibly help him if she didn’t start to dig? She had to start with at least a tentative probe. “Why doesn’t your family know about this place? They’d love it.”

“You’re an expert on what my family would love?” The words were pointed, but his tone was contemplative.

Sophie took heart and dug in. “Why, Alex?”

One big hand dropped onto his flat stomach in apparent defeat. “Because this was where my dad grew up.”

“This exact place?” She glanced around the hut.

“No, no.” Another chuckle. “This place is new. I designed it.”

“You did?” Surprise ran through her and then she remembered his sketches. The simple beauty of the lines and the warmth of the setting. Yes, she could see him designing this lovely, cozy home.

“I did.” This time his smile was smug and instead of irritating her, his arrogance made her amused. “Anyway, my dad grew up at the big house. His family worked there.”

“Like Nella and Petros?”

“Not exactly.” His gaze went distant as if he traveled into another world. “He worked for the old man I bought the property from.”

“Oh.”

“He loved it here, but he hated it.” His wide mouth firmed. “He said he loved the land, but hated not being in charge.”

“I can understand that.” She gave him an arch grin.

“Miss Business-Owner-In-Charge.” His smile came back at her, teasing and tempting. “I guess you could. Still, I didn’t understand as a kid.”

“He told you about this place when you were a kid?”

Alex nodded and took one more sip of his wine.

“But he didn’t tell your mother or your sisters about it?”

“I think it was a pride issue.” His voice took on an edge of something.

Irritation? At his father?

Or perhaps she imagined it. “He told you, though.”

“Yeah.” With an abrupt jolt, he stood and strode over to the dying fire. Lifting another log off the bin, he threw it in, and then, kneeling, he used the steel poker like he wanted to stab someone instead of a log. “He always wanted to return here and buy the place. Wipe out some bad memories, I guess.”

“But he died before he could.”

The muscles along his spine tensed. “Yes.”

They were circling around something here. She didn’t know how it was tied to his agitation about Henry and his work, yet instinctively, she knew it was. The memory of the last time they’d talked about his dad returned to her. He’d paced away from her like he wanted to explode into a run. At the time, she’d put it down to his usual animosity toward anything she did or said.

Now? Now she didn’t think this was the reason.

“How did he die, Alex?” She tiptoed into his minefield.

Surging to his feet, he punched his fists on his hips. “He had a heart attack.”

The simple, smooth words didn’t fit with his taut body and twitchy movements. “That must have been horrible for you.”

“Horrible for my family.” He swung around, the ugliness back in the depths of his eyes, but he didn’t march off like he had in Paris. Instead, he stomped to the table and grabbed his glass.

Sophie guessed she could count that as some sort of progress. “So you bought this place for him.”

His head yanked up from contemplating his wine. The azure blue of his eyes deepened as his mouth pursed. “Yeah, I guess.”

“But you built
this
place for yourself.” She kept her focus on him, willing him to tell her more, realize more.

His gaze narrowed. “Your point?”

She didn’t know the entire point, and, apparently, he didn’t either. Frustration ran through her because she could feel the strands of meaning swirling around them. Still, neither of them had all the answers.

Not yet.

“Perhaps there isn’t a point.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his real one. This one was harsh and hard. Taking a swig of wine, he slid into his chair. “Enough about me.”

Frustration ran right into sorrow. She could tell by the set of his mouth and the tight line of his jaw, he’d gone as far as he could go.

For tonight.

“Okay.” She girded herself because she could see in his expression what he wanted to talk about now. “Your turn to ask questions.”

“The tragic story.”

“The silly story.” And it was. Silly that she’d held onto the hurt for so long making it come between her and so many important situations. Like connecting to this man.

“Tell me.”

Sophie sighed and closed her eyes. In her imagination, she saw herself more than a decade ago. Young and happy and naїve. “I had a crush on a boy my senior year of high school.”

He grunted as if he disapproved.

Her eyes popped open to meet his. The blue had frost around the edges. “What? You can’t be jealous of a guy I knew over ten years ago.”

“Sure, I can.” He sipped his wine like he hadn’t said something astonishing. “Plus, I have a feeling already that I won’t like this guy and what he did to you.”

Her eyes widened. Alex was right. He wasn’t going to like what that high school jerk had done. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“No?” The frost hardened. “Whatever he did hurt you and the experience has stayed with you for years.”

“Well, I—”

“Tell me what he did.”

Taking another sip of wine, she was suddenly glad she had a fuzzy head. The old pain seemed very far away and inconsequential. “He asked me to the prom.”

“You were ecstatic.”

“Yes.” She chuckled, but the sound must have conveyed something besides amusement because Alex’s gaze narrowed.

His big hand fisted by his glass. “Go on.”

“I bought this gorgeous dress.” She closed her eyes at the memory.

“A red dress.”

She nodded, admiring his perceptiveness. “He picked me up and took me to the dance.”

A short silence fell.

“And?” he finally said.

“And I had a good time.” She forced herself to open her eyes and stare at him across the table. “The dress showed my cleavage.”

He could have easily made a snarky remark and she’d bet that a month ago, he would have. Now, all he did was look back at her.

“After the dance, he took me to an after-party at a hotel.” She spoke the words with precision so she wouldn’t let out any emotion. “A bunch of his friends were there with their dates. There was liquor.”

“Yeah?” His voice was gentle.

“I hadn’t drunk much before.” She glanced down at her hands and was surprised to see her knuckles were white. “I told him I didn’t want to drink.”

“He made you drink too much?”

“No.” She husked a painful laugh. “He did more than that. Or at least, I’m pretty sure he did.”

“What?” His voice came with a sharp cut.

“He spiked my drink. The one drink I accepted at the party.” She clutched her wine glass to do something with her hands. “I don’t remember much else about that night.”

“What was this guy’s name?”

Sophie glanced over to meet his fierce blue gaze. “What does it matter?”

“I’m thinking of tracking him down when we return to New York City.”

A zing of reluctant pleasure ran through her. “Don’t be silly. The whole thing happened a long time ago.”

He grunted and leaned back. “That’s the tragic story?”

“No.” She swallowed. “That’s the prelude.”

His mouth went grim. “I am really going to need to know this guy’s name.”

“He took pictures,” she blurted. “After I’d passed out.”

“Pictures…”

“Of me. Mostly naked.”

“How do you know this?” His gaze went from fierce to fiery.

“He showed them around school.” The same numbness she’d felt all those years ago crept from her stomach to her heart. “Finally, he…”

“He?”

“Posted them on his Facebook page.”

“Dammit, Sophie.”

The pain in his voice made her wince. But she wanted it all out. This was the first time she’d ever said anything about the fiasco since it happened and for some reason, she wanted every little bit of the story explained. “I got called a lot of names. People laughed at me.” She forced her own laugh. “I can assure you, the last part of my senior year of high school was not the best time of my life.”

“His name. What is his name?”

She stared at him. His face blazed with anger and his hands were fisted like he was ready to do battle. His protectiveness made her heart turn to mush. How she wished she’d had a gallant Alexander the Great by her side when she’d been seventeen. “It’s okay. My dad sued his family and the school. Eventually, every picture was destroyed. He got expelled, too.”

“It’s not okay.” Alex surged to his feet and circled the table. Before she could object, he’d swept her into his arms. “Look at me, Sophie.”

Dizzy from the wine and also from the confession, she laid her head on his strong arm and stared into his eyes. “They called me a fat cow.”

His mouth twisted and she saw her own pain in his eyes. “Sophie—”

“They said I had udders.” She sniffed, trying to stuff the tears back.

He walked to the sofa and sat down with her in his arms. The firelight flickered across the stern planes of his face as he stared at her. “Sophie.”

“Yeah?” She sniffed once more.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

A husky, disbelieving laugh escaped her. “O-okay.”

“I mean it.” His big hand slipped under her sweater and pushed it to her neck, exposing her big bosom stuffed into a bra. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make you realize I mean it.”

He shifted her into the corner of the sofa and knelt on the floor. She felt dazed and deflated, as if telling her silly story had taken everything out of her: her heart, her mind, her soul. She wanted to lean on the sofa’s cushions and fall asleep and pretend the silly story away—just as she had years before.

“Hey.” Alex wrenched her back into the present when he tugged her sweater over her head.

“What?” She knew she sounded sulky.

A month ago, he would have laughed at her. Tonight, his serious gaze latched onto hers. “I’m going to show you I mean it.”

Flicking at her bra’s clasp, he pulled it off her. She was naked from her waist up and the firelight highlighted every big bulge. In any other circumstance, she would have immediately clasped her arms around her, hiding. But she didn’t.

Because it was Alex.

She trusted him not to hurt her.

Her heart twirled inside her as the knowledge sank in.

“Look at you,” he crooned. His broad hands, with their blunt, thick fingers, slid over her breasts, plumping them. “Look how they fill my hands. Perfectly.”

She glanced down. She rarely looked at her chest. Her boobs were stuck into a bra and left alone for the most part.

“Your breasts are beautiful.” He put his perfect nose right into her too-big cleavage.

The tickle of his tongue made her squirm. The lethargy began to clear from her brain and the flush of embarrassment slid away, overcome by lust. “That feels good.”

His head came up. “This isn’t about sex.”

“No?” She frowned in confusion.

“No,” he said, a determined expression on his face. “This is about showing you how you are beautiful to me all the time. When we’re having sex or when we’re not.”

“All the time?”

“Yeah.” His hands moved across her skin, a soft, sweet slide. “Your breasts were made to fit into my hands,
krotída mou.
”

“Oh.” She glanced down again and realized he was right.

Her big breasts fit his big hands.

“And I would be completely happy looking at your breasts and playing with them all night long.”

“Really?” She still didn’t believe. This gorgeous man could have anyone and he picked her, wanted her above every other woman? He was willing to do nothing but play? “And nothing else?”

“Nothing else.” He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on the tips of each of her nipples.

A shiver of something, something that wasn’t lust, whispered through her. There was something in the way he caressed her, something in the way he placed his kisses, like a tribute, like an homage, that made her realize this wasn’t about sex for him.

This was something more.

“Do you see?” He lifted his gaze, the blue crystal clear and deep.

Sophie looked into his eyes and saw. She saw he meant everything he’d said.

She was beautiful to him.

All the time.

And she was made to fit
him
.

T
he snow made a very
satisfactory ball. Sophie slapped it one more time and then looked at her target.

As usual, Alex strode ahead of her, his long legs slicing through the piles of snow lining the path towards the horse barn. And as usual, she needed to do something to lighten his mood.

The snowball smacked him right in the back of his head.

He jerked to a stop.

Then turned slowly, menacingly.

Sophie was ready. The next snowball landed right at the side of his mouth, plastering his face with a nice layer of white stuff. The next missile needed to go right between those gorgeous blue eyes of his. Maybe the impact would knock some sense into him.

“You.” The brown woolen cap he wore was pulled down low on his forehead, but it didn’t disguise the gleam in his gaze. “You better watch out.”

“Ha.” She swung down and scooped up another handful of snow.

She took satisfaction in seeing some life appear in those eyes after a long day of moody introspection. She wanted to see something besides the ugliness that slipped in and out, rather like the squall of clouds that had rolled across the Greek skies all day.

The snow clumped into another very nice ball.

“Don’t.” The threat rang in his voice, but he didn’t make a move towards her.

He acted like he was afraid to come near her. He’d been like this all day: skirting around her in the kitchen as she cooked breakfast, staying in the bathroom until she’d worried he’d fallen down the bathtub drain, staring out the window for a complete hour as she tried to read a book.

The whole thing was utterly ridiculous. They were lovers. After last night’s conversation, when his big hands and his beautiful words had healed something deep inside her, they’d gone to the loft and she’d thought their connection couldn’t be improved on.

Until. Once again. He did the whole Mr. Perfect Lover routine over her objections. Was that why he kept away? Had he taken her tiny little suggestions, which he’d ignored, as a slur?

Idiot.

Sophie took her frustration and wrapped it around her new missile. Slinging it forward, with a pitch her softball coach would have been proud of, she hit the exact spot she’d hoped for.

Stumbling back, he brushed the snow off his eyebrows and eyelashes.

“Come on, Alex,” she taunted. “Fight me.”

His mouth twisted into a forbidding grimace, but that spark of life still shone in his eyes. “We were going to go see the horses.”

Her idea. She’d figured she’d even be willing to climb onto one of those scary animals if the action brought him out of his funk.

He wouldn’t talk about what was bothering him. She’d tried to dig it from him without success. He wouldn’t discuss the emir—her reference to the man was met by an unwelcoming grunt. He wouldn’t even argue when she made various guesses about what troubled him. Stony silence was his only response.

If she could confide the most awful, horrible, tragic story of her life, why couldn’t he confide in her?

Bright, hot hurt mingled with frustration.

“Before we get to the horses.” She formed another ball in her hands. “We’re going to have a snowball fight.”

With a savage growl, at last, he leapt.

With a quick screech, she turned and ran.

She didn’t get far. His gloved hands grabbed her by her flying ponytail and then, when she stumbled, they clutched her around the hips.

“No!” A cold breeze swept past as she found herself soaring through the air, falling into a mound of snow almost as big as she was.

His satisfied laugh echoed above her.

At least she’d got him to laugh.

Clambering to her knees, she shot him a baleful look.

“You deserved it.” His wide mouth grinned, and finally, finally, his eyes were the clear, cerulean blue that told her the storms had blown away. For now.

Being short had certain advantages. Like being able to dive toward a big lug’s legs before he knew he was in trouble.

“Whoa!” His long arms waved around him as she yanked once more on his jeans, flipping him into his own mound of snow.

She stood, brushing the snow off her gloves, looking down at him with smug delight. “Guess you aren’t so big after all.”

One long arm reached out and jerked on her red scarf, bringing her down with a slam onto his splayed body. “Big enough for you,” he muttered, before sliding his mouth over hers and slipping his tongue right in.

Sophie moaned and immediate heat ran through her blood. Along with it came determination. She wanted to show him what she’d meant last night with her tiny, little suggestions. She wanted the real Alex, not the perfect one.

A nip on his lower lip.

A thrust of her own tongue that then wrapped around his own.

Her gloved hands skidding across his jaw and under his hat to pull on his hair.

“Sophie,” he whispered.

She pulled herself up to look into his eyes. Trouble circled around the edges. Yet there was something else there, something she wanted to believe in, to trust in. Something she yearned for with every part of her soul and body.

“Alex,” she whispered back.

I love you
.

How she wanted to say the words, but she held them close, worried they would only confuse him more. Instinct told her he needed to figure out the ugliness inside before she could lay her love before him.

His gaze went cloudy again and his mouth tightened. “We’re getting all wet.”

“I have an idea.” She put on a happy smile. “Let’s really get wet. In your lovely hot pool.”

He chuckled. “Nope. Not going to happen, Miss I’m-Afraid-Of-Tiny-Little-Horses.”

She tried on a pout and got a quick shot of pleasure when the blue of his eyes darkened with desire. “I’ll get naked. I promise.”

“Yes, I’m sure you will.” He pushed her to stand and stood himself. “You seem to be quite keen on doing that all the time lately.”

“You like it.”

“True.” He captured her hand and pulled her toward the barn. “But right now, I’d like to see you on one of my horses.”

Sophie groaned.

Alex laughed.

And because of that laugh, she soon found herself perched about one hundred miles above the ground on the back of an extremely large animal.

“This is Arion.” He patted the side of her mount, his gloved hand moving on the bay coat. “He’s very tame.”

“He’s very big.” She held herself stiff and still, hoping the horse would do the same.

“No, he’s honestly not.”

Before she could ask him to please, please pull her off this beast, he sauntered toward the end of the barn, leaving her alone to wallow in a rising tide of terror.

“Oh. God.” Her hands tightened on the leather straps he’d placed into her hands. She wanted to shiver and shake, but then this animal would do the same and she’d topple off right onto the straw-lined cement.

Petros came through the open barn door, his wise eyes noticing her anxiety immediately. “
Despoinís
Sophia,
Despoinís
Sophia,” he crooned, walking over and grabbing onto the dangling reins.

“Can you get me off this horse, Petros? Please?”

“Don’t do it.” Alex’s voice rang down the aisle between the stalls. A half a dozen snorts from a line of horses responded to his dictate and Petros’s response to her request was a resigned smile.

“Okay, Stravoudas.” She would have loved to yell. But if she did, this creature under her would bolt. Perhaps, probably. So instead, she modulated her tone to one of mild…fear. “I got on the biggest horse you have. Now I want off.”

“Who told you Arion was the biggest?” He appeared from a stall, leading a monster of a horse behind him. Its head rose above Alex’s head by a good foot and the gleaming black coat rippled with muscle.

“Oh. God.”

“See?” He flashed her a smile, before swinging himself onto the horse’s back. “This is big.”

“Oh. God.”

“Is that all you’re going to say?” A caramel brow arched. “Usually you bring more to the conversation.”

“Get me down.” And away. Far away from the biggest horse she’d ever imagined. Plus, this big one she was on, too, come to think of it.

He ignored her. “This is Voukefalas.”

A big name for an extraordinarily big animal.

“My horse. He’s part Arabian. That’s why he’s bigger than the other horses.” He nudged the animal with his knees and much to her horror, the beast sidled over to right by her own. “I call him Vouk for short.”

“Wonderful.” Sophie sucked in a sharp, choppy breath. “Now that we’ve met, can I go? Away?”

Her lover chuckled. “No, we’re just getting started.”

“Oh. God.”

“Petros has plowed out a path around the track paddock so we can ride.”

Her heart rate went into overdrive. “Track? We’re going to race?”

“Not unless you want to.”

She shot him a look of horror.

“Don’t worry.” Still chuckling, he bent down and grabbed the middle of her reins and then nudged his monster again. The animal obediently began to pace out of the barn, dragging her horse, and her, behind.

“Alex.” Her voice quivered.

He glanced back, his eyes serious. “Trust me.”

Oh. God. This time, she said it silently, because she wanted to show him she did trust him.

The air was brisk and the sky had finally cleared. Petros jogged ahead of them and opened a thick, wooden gate so they could pass through. Alex turned both horses onto a pathway between a line of fences on one side and another on the other side, making a wide circle. The circle was filled with a white sea of snow and she saw the fresh pile Petros had recently plowed at one end.

“All right?” Alex tugged on her horse and both horses strutted into a fast walk.

“What if I said no?”

She got another chuckle for that. They kept the same pace all around the track until they arrived back at where they started.

Taking a deep breath of relief in, she managed a smile. “That was entertaining and now it’s time to—”

“Trust me. You’re going to have a lot more entertainment.”

He let go of her reins.

He let go.

Her horse took a dance to the side. Her breath lodged in her throat like a boulder. “I don’t think—”

“Relax your legs,” he ordered. “Arion thinks you want him to move.”

She slammed her eyes shut and imagined herself in her bakery, baking.

“Good.” His voice came from her side, calm and reassuring. “Now open your eyes.”

“I don’t think I can do that and relax at the same time.”

“Sure you can, Sophie. You can do anything.”

The total belief in his voice made her insides melt and gave her courage. She opened her eyes to gaze right between the perked ears of her mount. The view showcased the mountain’s snowy hillside sloping down and down to a splendid lake. She’d spent most of her time indoors and had never ventured farther than the hut and the house and the stables. Look at what she’d missed. “Gosh. It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah.” His voice came soft and almost hesitant. “It is.”

A realization pinged into her conscience. She’d seen this man in New York, being the charming, arrogant, successful entrepreneur. She’d seen him in Paris, fitting into the richness of the culture, a connoisseur of what the city had to offer. But here, here she saw the raw, the real. Even though he’d been surly and strange since they arrived here, she saw. She saw
him
. She looked over and caught his attention. “This isn’t your home, Alex. This is your heart.”

A silence fell between them, filled only by the gentle swish of the wind in the evergreens and the muted whinny of one of the horses inside the barn.

Her lover abruptly broke the connection between them by jerking his gaze back to the track. “Let’s go.”

His mount responded to some unspoken command by surging forward, seeming to fly down the path with the grace of a mystical Pegasus.

“Wait, Arion—” Before she could grab onto a fence post and climb off the beast, her own mount followed. The horse flew after the other beast with Sophie clinging to the reins and the edge of her saddle. “Help!”

Instantly, Alex checked his horse and pulled to her side. “Relax, Soph.”

“I can’t—”

“Sit back and don’t squeeze your legs.” His voice came, even and confident. “Roll with Arion’s gait.”

Her heart
chugged, chugged,
but she forced her legs to loosen.

“That’s it.”

He was here, right beside her and even though she’d seen the turbulence in his gaze before he swung away, she knew he wouldn’t let her get hurt. Her words had stirred the hornet’s nest inside him, still, he wouldn’t hold it against her. She knew that. She trusted him.

“Take a deep breath.”

She breathed.

“Now ease back in the saddle like you’re sitting in a rocking chair.”

Concentrating, she allowed the muscles along her spine to relax and the horse under her responded by settling into a rolling, tranquil pace.

They went around the circle once. Then twice. All of a sudden, she got it. Moving with the animal, instead of trying to figure out her own rhythm. Becoming attuned to each movement beneath her and compensating with a lean here and a touch there. A joy, a profound, eternal joy sprung from the center and wound through her like an unexpected gift. “This is amazing.”

She glanced at him and met his azure eyes. He stared at her as the horses moved beneath them; the sun played light on the snow; the air brushed their skin with a cool breeze. The moment seemed to go on forever and something inside her lurched and shuddered. Something like her past and present and future all rolling into this man.

“What?” She tried to taunt the poignancy from the moment because he was suddenly too much to take in. His presence and what he’d come to mean to her. “Is something on my face?”

“Yeah.” His one word whispered toward her, circling around and around inside her heart. A blazing connection she’d never felt with anyone else on the entire planet crackled between them.

And she knew then and there, that she not only loved this man for now, but she would also love him forever.