PrideandSurrender (8 page)

“And I insist you call me Amara.” She dropped her hands from
my face and tucked her hand around my arm. “Come, we’ll get acquainted in the
kitchen.” She waved a hand at Christos. “Everyone is out back, go.”

Panic rolled through my belly, and I cast him a silent
Help
me
plea. I wasn’t ready to be alone with her.

“Mama,” Christos said, trailing after us despite his
mother’s order. “Let me introduce Juliet before you steal her away from me.”

“Oh very well,” she said, and smiled at me warmly. “He’s
scared of what secrets I’ll reveal once we’re alone.”

The idea of Christos being scared of anything was foreign
enough to me to probe deeper. “Like what?”

Amara cast an evil smirk back at her son. “Perhaps I’ll
bring out the baby pictures.”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Christos said, making me laugh so I
relaxed fractionally.

She led me down a narrow hallway, and I was thankful for the
steady sound of Christos’ steps behind me. At the end of the corridor, she
opened a door that led out onto a veranda. Stepping onto the terrace was like
stepping onto a Greek isle.

White furniture, blue and white stone and tile accented with
lush pink flowers and high hedges. A sitting area overlooked a small pond, and
in the center of the space a large teak table sat under a billowy canopy.
Transported to another time and place, it was impossible to believe an entire
city sat on the other side of this haven. “Oh,” I breathed out in a hushed
voice. “This is beautiful.”

Christos came beside me and slid his hand on my waist,
placing a soft kiss at my temple while his mother let me go and her son drew me
close. “I knew you’d love it.”

A sea of faces stared back at me, curious but welcoming.
Christos walked me forward to the group and introduced me. Two sisters, their
husbands and children surrounded me with warm smiles. My head swam as I tried
to remember names and faces as they enveloped me like a long-lost friend. The
warmth and causal acceptance soothed over my frayed nerves like a salve.

Suddenly I stood in front of an older man with
salt-and-pepper hair and black compelling eyes, so handsome I could only stare.
The man could only be Christos’ father, so similar in looks and build it was
like staring at Christos twenty years in the future.

What would it be like to grow old with him?

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, I pushed it away.
Why were these thoughts creeping in? I didn’t want them. I didn’t want any
expectations. I’d made up my mind to enjoy the moment, the time I had with him,
and spinning fantasy about our future would only ruin that.

“Juliet, this is my father Nickolas,” Christos said,
presenting his father as if he were a gift.

“So this is the lovely Juliet,” The older man grasped my
shoulders and pulled me close, kissing me on each cheek. “Come, sit with me.”
He gestured me over to a sitting area overlooking the quiet little pond.

Christos pulled me onto the white loveseat while his father
settled into a chair across from us, his mother joining us next to her husband
so we formed a circle while the rest of the party went on behind us. Children
laughed. The low buzz of conversation flitted behind us like a bumble bee.

Unable to relax after being wound so tight for so long, I
sat rigid.

Christos draped his arm over the back of the couch, gently
brushing the curve of my neck. I grasped my hands tightly in my lap and
resisted the urge to brush him away like a pesky fly. It wasn’t that his touch
didn’t comfort me, it did, but his parents sat across from us with hope and
interest bright on their faces, and I didn’t want to give them the wrong
impression.

For all I knew, I’d never see them again.

I attempted a smile that got lost somewhere around the
middle and died on my lips. Remembering what Christos had said, I forced myself
to respond to the situation the way I would a business lunch. I straightened my
shoulders and Christos’ fingers stroked over my skin. “Thank you so much for
inviting me, Mr. and Mrs. Constantine. Your home,” I swept my hand over the
oasis terrace, “this garden, it’s beautiful. It’s hard to believe we’re in the
middle of the city.”

Amara smiled, glancing over her yard. “Yes, a little bit of
home to keep us company. But please call us Amara and Nickolas, we might be
strangers, but I am confident it is a temporary arrangement.”

Beside me, Christos chuckled and ran a palm down my bare
arm. “She’s very subtle.”

I nodded, wishing he’d stop touching me. With a forced
smile, I said, “Thank you, I’ll try to remember.”

“I understand you and Christos are in the same business?”
Nickolas asked.

“Yes,” I said, wondering when Christos had spoken of me.
We’d been in each other’s constant company since he’d shown up in my office
Friday afternoon, so when could he have discussed me with his family? “We’re
competitors actually.”

Nickolas’ dark eyes gleamed while his face lit with delight.
“Ah yes, that’s bound to make things very interesting.”

Latching on to this safe subject, I scowled up at Christos,
momentarily taken aback by the intensity in his eyes as he looked down at me.
My mind flashed to an image of me bound on my bed, spread and open to him while
he hovered over me with that very expression. Heat stole over my skin.

Wicked and evil, he grinned. He knew what I was thinking. He
could see it in my eyes.

Clearing my throat, I shifted my attention back to Nickolas,
whose lips quirked as though trying to contain his amusement. I refused to
become flustered. “Not very interesting, really, he always wins, so it’s not
much of a challenge for him.”

“Oh, I have a feeling you’re plenty of challenge for my
son,” Nickolas said with a teasing lilt to his tone.

“Yes, she is.” Christos ran his palm down my bare arm,
pulling me close and kissing my temple.

I wanted to stomp my foot and tell him to stop. Why did he
have to be so familiar with me? He was increasing my discomfort, he had to know
he was, but didn’t seem to care. I dug my elbow into his ribs but he didn’t
even budge. “Besides, Juliet would hate it if I let her win.”

Nickolas raised his brow. “A strong-willed, competitive
woman is always a good thing. It will keep you on your toes.”

Unable to resist the need to defend myself, I blurted, “I’m
not competitive, he’s just annoyingly smug, and I feel compelled to put him in
his place. I consider it my gift to the female population.” Horror flashed
through me. Why in heaven had I said that?

To my shock, before I could start spinning apologies, all
three of them laughed.

“Oh, I like you,” Amara said, a huge smile on her face. “You
will be good for him.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

Christos squeezed my shoulder. “You can’t help yourself.”

Amara leaned over as though making me her conspirator. She
cast a fond look at her husband. “My husband and son are cut from the same
cloth so to speak. Believe me, dear one, I understand. I too consider it my
personal duty not to give my husband his way too often.”

Nickolas cast a hooded glance at his wife before saying
something in Greek.

I glanced up at Christos with a silent question.

He smiled. “He told her she’d pay for her comments.”

Same cloth indeed. From the look passing between them, I
guessed this would be something Amara would gladly pay.

They were nothing at all as I expected, but now that I’d met
them, they seemed exactly right. Chic and a bit European, Christos made a
little more sense to me. Curious, I asked, “How did you two meet?”

“Once upon a time,” Nickolas said, “I fancied myself an
artist. I took a class and she was the model.”

I had no trouble believing that. As stunning as Amara was
now, she had to have been breathtaking, movie-star gorgeous as a young girl.

“One look at her and I knew she was mine.” Nickolas reached
over and took her hand before flashing me a wry smile. “Just as every other
young man in the class believed.”

I imagined their eyes catching across the room and them
falling in love at first sight. A ridiculously romantic notion, but somehow, as
they looked at each other with such love, I had no trouble believing it.

“Of course she wanted nothing to do with me,” Nickolas
continued, disabusing me of the story my imagination had been weaving.

I blinked at Amara, who laughed at my startled look, making
a flush spread up my neck. She patted Nickolas’ hand. “I had other plans that
didn’t include an arrogant Greek man.”

“The other boys, she didn’t say yes to them either,”
Nickolas said. “But for
me
she had a particular dislike.”

“My Juliet, surely you can sympathize.”

Amara rolled her eyes and scoffed, “Do you know what he did
the first time he talked to me?”

I leaned forward, on the edge of my seat at this
not-so-smooth telling of their romance. “What?”

“He walked over to me after class, strutting through the
room like a peacock.” She straightened in her chair, squaring her shoulders,
transforming her features into an arrogant, dominant mask that I’d seen on her
son’s face hundreds of times.

The image, so startling realistic of husband and son, I
laughed, not forced this time, but with genuine pleasure that tightened my
stomach.

She winked at me. “Ah, so you know this look?”

“I do,” I said, unable to stop the camaraderie shared
between two women who understood the ways of a certain type of man.

Nickolas sighed and shook his head at his son. “I believe
we’re being mocked, Christos.”

“It seems so,” Christos said, his tone amused.

“And then,” Amara continued, ignoring the comments, plopping
back against the back cushion of her chair. “And then, he did the worst thing
imaginable.”

Nickolas groaned and scrubbed a hand over his face as though
he were unable to bear the follies of his youth. “Please, darling, she’ll think
horribly of me and we’ve just met the dear girl.”

“Ha!” Amara rambled something off in Greek that made
Christos laugh but left me out of the loop. She wagged a finger at me. “Some
transgressions are unforgiveable. So he walks over to me, thinking he’s…”

She glanced around and gestured. “What do these young people
call it today?” Her expression brightened and she snapped her fingers. “Ah yes,
I remember, like he’s sex on a stick, and examines me as if I’m a goat for
purchase before he says,” she dropped her voice several octaves, mimicking the
tone of a man, her face alive and animated in a way that made me want to
photograph her again, “‘Come with me.’”

I rolled with laughter, slapping me knee with my hand as
uncontrollable waves of the giggles swept over me. I could so picture it, so
see the scene, feel how she felt, as I felt the first time I’d had a
conversation with her son. Like her, I’d experienced the mixture of emotions in
the face of an arrogant, far-too-handsome-to-be-true man who wasn’t used to
taking no for an answer.

“But it gets worse,” Amara leaned back over toward me again
with narrowed eyes. “So of course I refuse. But he tries again, this time
telling me that while I’m very beautiful, I also have generous hips and thinks
I’ll make a good mother.” She rolled her eyes at her husband, love and
affection on her face despite the exasperation.

“You do have lovely hips, my darling,” Nickolas said before
looking at me. “You must understand, Juliet, different time, different culture.
This was a compliment.”

Amara snorted. “What a foolish man you are.”

Warmth stole over me, taking me by surprise, making my guard
slip, so I said quite without thinking, “Christos told me that I can’t beat him
because I lack passion and couldn’t understand why I took offense.”

Amara’s brows instantly snapped together as a darkness
clouded her face. “Christos!” She started off in a tirade of Greek, arms waving
as she yelled at her son. While I didn’t understand the words, her disapproval
was plain and Christos started to sputter under the onslaught.

“Wait. Hang on, here, there’s more to—”

More yelling.

“No. Wait. I did not. You don’t understand,” Christos
pleaded through his mother’s tirade.

Amara didn’t even slow up, and I hid a smile behind my
fingers, thoroughly charmed by Christos’ flustered protests.

He turned and scowled, running his hands through his hair so
he looked rumpled, boyish and disgruntled. “Tell her, Juliet, tell her the
entire story.”

In that moment, the foundation under my feet shook as my
world titled on its axis and the knowledge I’d been fighting sank in, shaking
me to the very core.

I loved him. I was truly, deeply, passionately, insanely in
love with Christos Constantine.

Something shifted inside me, making room for the wealth of
emotion brewing inside me that threatened to overflow.

Our eyes met. Caught. Clung.

He went still, the green of his irises growing bigger as
they contracted.

I loved this man.

It welled inside me like a tsunami, swelling with a force
that threatened to not only drown me but sweep me away forever. The realization
was brutal, raw and passionate, just like all my emotions with Christos. No
gentle lapping of tides with him.

I
loved him.

I waited for the panic, the swell of fear to crush me. I sat
in this private Greek isle oasis, his family in the background, the breeze
blowing over my cheeks, rustling the strands of my hair, frozen in my
anticipation and expectation.

Christos’ gaze was probing, as though trying to reach into
my mind and pull free my thoughts. He brushed his fingers over my hand.

Electricity snapped between us.

I braced for the rush of terror. The flood of fear. Tears.
The urge to run.

Only it didn’t come.

One thought wrapped around me, enveloping me in a comfort
and warmth.