Rachel bent down and picked his wallet up without thinking. It was an expensive wallet. Black leather with fine stitching. Like something her father would own.

Her eyes skimmed over to his ID. He had an American driver’s license. Which seemed odd. Because he was Greek, no question.

Okay, snoopy. Not really your business.

And it wasn’t. They weren’t trading life stories so it wasn’t really fair for her to be looking at his personal property.

Before she could snap the wallet shut and put it on the table she read his name. Not on purpose. But she saw it, and then all she could do was stare.

She knew his name.

And for a full thirty seconds she didn’t know from where.

Alexios Christofides.

She heard the name in Ajax’s voice. A growl, a curse.

He wasn’t a stranger.

She’d been seduced by her fiancé’s enemy.

MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.

Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.

Recent titles by the same author:

PRETENDER TO THE THRONE

(The Call of Duty) FORGED IN THE DESERT HEAT A HUNGER FOR THE FORBIDDEN HIS RING IS NOT ENOUGH

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

One Night to

Risk It All

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my family.

Because it takes a village to support me, and you all do it with remarkable ease, very little grumbling, and a lot of love.

You can never know how much I appreciate you.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

EXTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

RACHEL HOLT’S FOCUS was pulled to the nightstand. To the ring glittering there in the bedside table light. She lifted her left hand and looked at the finger the ring had been on only a few hours ago.

Strange to see it bare after so much time wearing it.

But it hadn’t seemed right to wear it now.

She picked it up off the nightstand and held it up, watching it sparkle, then turned over and looked at the man sleeping next to her. His arm thrown up over his head, his eyes closed, dark curls falling into his face. He was like an angel. A wonderful fallen angel who’d shown her some deliciously sinful things.

But he wasn’t the man who’d given her the ring. He wasn’t the man she was supposed to marry next month.

That was a problem.

He was so beautiful, though, it was hard to think of him as a problem. Alex, with the beautiful deep blue eyes and golden-brown skin. Alex, whom she’d met that afternoon—oh, good Lord, she’d known him less than twenty-four hours—on the docks.

She looked at the clock. She’d known him for eight hours. Eight hours had been all it took for her to shed years of staid, respectable behavior. To shed her engagement ring, and follow her... She couldn’t say heart. It was hormones, clearly.

What had she been thinking? It hadn’t been anything like the way she normally behaved. Not at all. She knew better than this. Knew better than to let emotion or passion overcome common sense and decorum.

There had been no decorum tonight.

From the first moment she’d seen him, she’d been completely captivated by the way he moved. The way his muscles shifted as he worked at cleaning the deck.

She closed her eyes and went straight back there. And it was easy to remember what had made her lose her mind...and her clothes.

* * *

It was the most beautiful weather they’d had since they’d arrived in Corfu. Not too hot, a breeze blowing in off the sea. Rachel and Alana had just finished lunch, and her friend was headed to the airport to fly back to New York, while Rachel was staying on to represent the Holt family at a charity event.

This vacation was her last hurrah before her wedding next month. A sowing of oats, in a respectable manner of course, as anyone would want to do before they tied themselves, body and soul, to another person for the rest of their lives.

“More shoes?” Alana asked, gesturing to the little boutique shop that was just across the pale, stone street.

“I’m going to say no,” Rachel said, looking out across the water, at the ships, the yachts, that were tethered to the docks.

“Are you sick?”

She laughed and walked over to the seawall, bracing herself on it. “Maybe.”

“It’s the wedding, isn’t it?” Alana asked.

“It shouldn’t be. I’ve known it was coming for ages. We’ve had an understanding for six years and been engaged for a good portion of those years. The date for the wedding has been set for almost eleven months. So...”

“You’re allowed to change your mind,” Alana said.

“No. I’m not. I... Can you imagine? The wedding is the social event of the year. Jax is finally going to get Holt. My father will finally have him as a son, which we all know is what both of them want.”

“What about what you want?”

It had been so long since she’d asked herself that question, she honestly didn’t know the answer.

“I...care about Ajax.”

“Do you love him?”

Her eye caught movement out on one of the yachts— a man was on the deck cleaning. He was shirtless, a pair of loose, faded shorts clinging to lean hips. Aided by the sun, the light clinging to the ridges of muscle, the shadow settling in the hollows, she could clearly see the defined, cut lines of his body.

And he took her breath away.

In one moment she had all of the passion, all of the heat, all of the deep longing she’d been growing so certain she was missing—sucked out of her by that horrendous early heartbreak—sweep through her like a wave.

“No,” she said, her eyes never leaving the man on the yacht, “no, I don’t love him. Not—not like you mean. I’m not in love with him. I do love him, it’s just not...that kind.”

It wasn’t a revelation. But coming on the heels of that sudden rush of sensation, it was more disturbing than normal.

She’d sort of thought that maybe it was her fault. Not her and Ajax together, but just the way they were as people. Ajax wasn’t a passionate man, and he never demonstrated passion with her. Quite the contrary, he barely touched her. After all their years together he never went further than a kiss. A nice, deep kiss sometimes. Sometimes a kiss that lasted a long while on the couch in his penthouse. But no clothes were ever shed. The earth was never shattered. It was never hard to stop.

And because he was a very handsome man, she’d assumed that the problem—if it could be called a problem—was with both of them. That she was missing a piece of herself, passion choked out after years of tight control. After letting her passion carry her to the edge of a cliff all those years ago, only to be pulled back just in time, so very aware of the fate she’d been saved from.

Since then, she’d kept it on a tight leash. Which made them sort of an ideal couple, in her mind.

But that wasn’t true. She knew it now. In a blinding flash of clarity, she knew it.

She had passion. It was still there. And she wanted.

“What are you going to do?” Alana asked, sounding heavily concerned now.

Rachel’s face heated. “Um...about?”

“You don’t love him.”

Oh. Of course Alana wasn’t in her head—she didn’t know that Rachel’s world had just been rocked by a man more than one hundred yards away.

She waved a hand. “Yes, but that’s nothing new to me.”

“You’re staring at that man over there.”

Rachel blinked. “Am I?”

“Obviously.”

“Well he’s...”

“Mmm. Yes, he is. Go talk to him.”

“What?” Rachel whipped around to look at Alana. “Just...go talk to him?”

“Yeah. I don’t have to get on my plane for another few hours so if you need a bailout, I’m here. But I can hang back.”

“Go talk to him and what?”

Flirtation, living dangerously, living for the moment—that was all a part of a past so long gone it felt like it belonged to someone else entirely. The Rachel who had narrowly escaped humiliating herself and her family was gone. New Rachel had emerged from the wreckage. And New Rachel was a rule follower. A peacekeeper. She went with the flow and did what she could to keep everyone happy. To make sure she didn’t go too far over the line and miss the safety net her father provided for her.

But for some reason, standing there in the sunshine, thinking of the safety her father provided, of the stability she had with Ajax, she felt like she was drowning in the air. Felt like there was a noose tightening around her neck, the countdown to her execution looming....

Such drama, Rachel, it’s a wedding, not a hanging.

But even so, she felt like it was. Because the wedding presented her with utter, final certainty for her future. A future as Ajax’s wife. As New Rachel, the one who never created a ripple on the surface, for the rest of her life.

“You have got to go and talk to him,” Alana said. “You turned red when you first saw him. Like...really red. Like he lit your toes on fire.”

Rachel choked. “Dramatic much?”

“So okay, I’ve sat back and watched your engagement with Ajax, and I haven’t said much. But as you just said, you aren’t madly in love with him. And anyone with eyes sees that.”

“I know,” she said, her throat tightening.

“Look, I know we’re old and boring now. And I know that in high school we did some stupid stuff....”

“To say the least,” Rachel said.

Alana continued. “But I think you’ve gone a little bit too far the other way.”

“The alternative wasn’t any good.”

“Maybe not. But I think maybe this future isn’t so good, either.”

“What else can I do, Alana?” Rachel asked. “My dad bailed me out so many times, and I pushed him to the point where he was ready to wash his hands of me. And now? We’re close. We have a relationship. I make him proud. And if Ajax is the price I have to pay for that then...I accept it.”

“Does he at least make you feel like your toes have been lit on fire?”

Rachel looked at the man on the yacht again. “No,” she said, the word choked out. “He doesn’t.”

“Then I think you owe it to yourself to spend some time with a man who does.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I really do.”

“So...I should just go talk to him? Want to bet he curses me out in Greek and then goes back to work?”

Alana laughed. “Yeah, that won’t happen, Rach.”

“How do you know? Maybe he doesn’t like blondes.”

“He’ll like you because you’re the kind of woman who drives men crazy.”

“Not so much anymore.” Flirting, toying and teasing had ended badly for her eleven years ago, and Ajax had certainly never acted as if she’d driven him crazy.

“Lies,” Alana said, waving her hand. “Live dangerously for a minute, babe. Before you stop living altogether.”

Rachel couldn’t take her eyes off him, not even to shoot her friend the evil eye, which is what she should really be doing. “Did you read that on a fortune cookie?”

“Ever had an orgasm with an actual man? ’Cause I have. So...”

At the mention of orgasms, Rachel’s cheeks burned. No, no she hadn’t. She’d given them a few times, yes, but never received. “Fine. I’ll go talk to him,” she said. “Talk to. Not orgasm with. Lower that suggestive eyebrow of yours.”

“Okay. And I’ll be close. So if you...you know, need anything, text.”

“Also I have mace,” Rachel said. “Ajax insisted.”

She winced as she mentioned her fiancé’s name. But she wasn’t going to do anything, not really. She was just going to go talk to Shirtless Sailor Stud. She wasn’t going to do anything inappropriate.

It was all about having a moment. Just a moment. To be brave and reckless, and not so much like the Rachel she’d been this past decade. To know what it was like to chase a moment that wasn’t bound up in the expectations of other people.

Just a moment. To talk to a guy because she thought he was cute. Nothing more.

She took a breath and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Wish me...well, not luck exactly.”

Alana winked. “Get lucky.”

“No. I’m not cheating on Jax.”

“Okay,” Alana said.

“I’m not.” The very idea was laughable. There were people who were like that. Bold people who went around carpe-ing diems all over the place. But that wasn’t her. Not anymore. She wasn’t sure that had ever been her. Her rebellious years had been just that. Rebellion. Not just a desire for freedom, but a desire to push against the bonds that had always held her in place. Until she’d realized just how much that behavior affected other people. Just how much it could affect her. Not just her present, but her entire future.

But just saying hi wasn’t so bad. There was no harm in giving herself a moment to bask in the heat that this stranger gave off.

“Riiiight,” Alana said.

“Shush.” Rachel turned and walked toward the dock, her hands shaking, her body rebelling in every way against what she was about to do. Sweaty palms, heart beating so fast she was pretty sure she was going to faint, mouth watering with sickness. Yep, the signs to run and preserve herself were all there.

But she ignored them.

She looked back at Alana one more time, who was standing at the wall still, watching. Then she turned back to her target.

She would just say hi. And maybe flirt. Just a little harmless flirting. She half remembered how that went. She’d been a master of the tease back in the day. Batting her eyes and touching a guy’s shoulder, all while never intending to do anything more than use his interest to boost her ego. It had been a game then. Fun.

Why not revisit it? This was her last hurrah before her marriage. A chance to hang and shop with Alana. A little time to decompress, loll by the beach, watch chick flicks in her hotel room, then enjoy a charity gala. All without her family or Ajax around.

This was just a part of that. A little time off from being Rachel Holt, beloved media figure. Rachel Holt, who was doing her best to represent her family, to do what was right.

She needed some time to just be Rachel. Not New Rachel. Not Old Rachel, either. Just Rachel.

She stopped in front of the yacht and took a deep breath that was choked off.

Then she looked up, and her gaze crashed into the most electric blue eyes she’d ever seen. Followed by a slow, wicked smile, a flash of bright white teeth on dark skin. He was even more beautiful up close. Utterly arresting. He pushed dark curls out of his eyes and the motion made his muscles flex. A show just for her. And her hormones stood and applauded. And cheered for an encore.

Stupid hormones.

“Are you lost?” he asked, his English heavily accented. The same accent as Ajax’s. Greek. And yet it didn’t sound the same. It wasn’t as refined. It had a rough edge that abraded against something deep inside her. Struck against the hard, dry places inside of her and set off a shower of sparks that sat smoldering, building.

And all that over three words. She was doomed if she did anything other than walk away.

But she didn’t. She stayed rooted to the spot.

“Um...I was...I was just there,” she gestured back to the wall where she’d been standing with Alana, who was now absent. “And I saw you.”

“You saw me?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a problem?”

“I...” she said, stumbling over her words. “Not a problem, no. I just noticed you.”

“Is that all?”

He put his foot up on the metal railing that surrounded the deck then jumped down onto the dock, the motion fluid, shocking and...darn hot.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Your name?”

“Rachel Holt.”

She waited. For recognition to flash through his eyes. For him to get excited at being in front of someone who had a certain level of media fame. Or for him to turn away. People did one of those two things. Rarely anything else.

But there was no recognition. Nothing.

“Well, Rachel,” he said, that voice a rush of liquid that pooled low in her body, “what is it you noticed about me?”

“That, um...you were hot,” she said. She’d never been so forward with a man in her life. Though, honestly, she wasn’t sure if she was being forward or being an idiot. She was good with people. The consummate hostess. Everyone, even the vicious press, liked her. A reputation that had been carefully cultivated—and fiercely guarded.

But she was a lot more experienced at offering people cold beverages than she was at offering them her body.

He arched one dark brow. “That I was hot?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you ever had a woman come on to you before?” Her face was burning and she couldn’t blame the afternoon sun. She wasn’t supposed to be hitting on him, and yet these were the words leaving her mouth.

Stupid mouth. Almost as stupid as her hormones.

“Yes, but not in quite such a charming way. Did you have an end goal in mind for this?”

“I thought...” Suddenly she did. Suddenly she wanted everything, all at once, with this stranger. Wanted to touch him, kiss him, feel his fingertips forge a trail of fire over her bare skin as he took her to levels of ecstasy she’d never believed were possible for her to want, let alone feel. “I thought we could have a drink.” A drink. A cold beverage. That was back in her comfort zone and maybe a bit smarter. Especially since she didn’t even know his name. “What’s your name?” she asked, because since she was engaging in naked fantasies about the man, it seemed polite to ask.

“Alex,” he said.

“Just Alex?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder, the muscles in his chest shifting with the motion. “Why not?”

Why not, indeed? It wasn’t as though there was any reason for him to be anything else. Who cared what his last name was? She’d never have occasion to use it. She’d never introduce him at a party, or need to refer to him in conversation. She’d never see him after today.

“Good point. So, a drink? Or...would your boss get mad?”

“My boss?”

“The owner of the yacht.”

He frowned and looked behind him, then back at her. “Oh. No, he’s gone up to Athens for a few days. I’m just supposed to check in on things now and again. No need to stay tied to the dock.”

“I suppose not. You won’t float away.” She laughed, then felt immediately stupid. Like she’d regressed to being an eighteen-year-old girl rather than a twenty-eight-year-old woman. Of course, she hadn’t been giggly or ridiculous over men at eighteen. She’d learned better by then.

Apparently all good sense and life lessons were out the window now.

He wrinkled his nose and squinted against the sun, an oddly boyish gesture. It made her feel even warmer. “I don’t suppose. Though I have in the past.”

“Have you?”

“Sure. That’s how I ended up here. I spend a lot of my life floating.”

She felt the layered meaning in his words. And in a strange way, felt like she’d heard more honest words from this stranger, this man she’d known all of five minutes, than she’d ever heard out of the man she was planning to marry.

“So,” he said, “drink?”

“Of course.”

“Let me just get a shirt.” He tossed her a smile and climbed back up onto the boat. It took all of her willpower not to say “oh, no, please leave your chest bare.” She figured that would be pushing it. Especially since, no matter how much she might want him, she knew she’d never do anything about it.

A drink was all it would ever be.

They’d gone to the bar next and ordered a couple of sodas. She’d texted Alana to let her know everything was fine and that she wasn’t axe-murdered. But she didn’t send a text when she and Alex walked around town for hours, or when they ended up having dinner on the pier, laughing and talking over seafood and pasta. She didn’t text Alana about how he lifted his fork to her lips and let her taste his entrée, about the way their eyes had met in that moment and it had sent a snap of heat through her.

Or when he took her to a club later that night.

She hadn’t been to a club since she’d had to sneak in with a fake ID. Clubs like this were a hotbed of scandal and sex, and all sorts of things her father and Ajax would never have approved of. The sort of place the press would crucify her for going to.

Alcohol, loud thumping music, sticky dance floors filled with bodies. There had been a time when she’d loved it. But not after she’d become aware of what she was inviting. Not since she realized the sort of trouble she could get herself into. Since she realized she’d been walking down a path that only had one ending, and it wasn’t a happy one.

But just for now, she was going to put good behavior on hold. She felt secluded here, insulated by whatever magic spell Alex had cast on her the first moment she’d seen him. No one around was looking at her, expecting her to behave in a certain way. She didn’t think she was in any danger of exposing herself the way she’d done in the past.

Somehow, with Alex, it felt exciting. It felt dangerous—a hit of adrenaline she used to crave. One she’d denied herself for far too long.

It all did. The whole day. It was like being on a vacation from herself, and she loved it. Or maybe it was a vacation to herself, but that was a step further into the philosophical than she wanted to get.

“This is so fun!” she shouted, trying to make her voice heard over the thumping bass.

“You are enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“Very.”

He took her left hand and the touch of his skin against hers sent a lightning bolt shooting from her wrist to her core. “I have been meaning to ask about this,” he said, tilting her knuckles so that her engagement ring caught the light.

Looking at it made her stomach crash into her toes. She didn’t want to think about that. About reality. Not at all.

“I’m not married,” she said.

A wicked smile curved his lips, blue eyes glittering in the dim light. “I wouldn’t have cared if you were. I would have maybe just asked how big your husband was. And if he was connected to organized crime in any way.”

The thought of Ajax being connected to anything as sordid or exciting as organized crime was hysterically funny. He was far too staid for anything that outrageous. He was the calming, steadying influence in her life. Or at least that’s how her father saw him. And she couldn’t really imagine him mustering up any rage for Alex being here at the club with her.

Ajax wasn’t really a club kind of guy. If she’d asked him, he would have probably waved his hands and said to have fun while he went back to sorting numbers into columns or whatever it was he did all night in his office that gave him such satisfaction.

“Um...you don’t need to be concerned. Besides, we haven’t done anything we should be ashamed of,” she said. “I haven’t...violated any vows.”

“Yet,” he said, his grin turning wicked. “It’s still early.”

“So it is,” she said, her heart thundering hard.

“Do you want to dance?”

She looked at his outstretched hand and she felt an ache, a need, tighten in her belly. Ajax had never once danced with her. Had never even asked. And until that moment, she hadn’t realized that she’d been missing it.

In that same moment, she realized that this wasn’t just a request for a simple dance.

She knew that this was it. The deciding moment. That if she said yes to this, she wouldn’t say no again for the rest of the night.

But maybe that had been true hours ago. Maybe from the moment she’d locked eyes with him, saying no had been an impossibility.

“Yes,” she said, the word torn from her, scraping her throat raw and leaving in its place a sweet, light relief. She had decided. Tonight she was going to embrace life, whatever that meant. “Yes, Alex, I want to dance.”

CHAPTER TWO

HE KISSED HER for the first time out on the dance floor. There were people all around them, the crush of bodies intense. And she let them push her into him, let them drive her against him so that she could feel the hard heat of his muscles against her chest.

When she was pressed against him, she looked up, angled her head toward his. She knew she was begging for it and she didn’t care. Because she needed this. More than air. It didn’t matter what happened tomorrow, or in the month leading up to her wedding, not if she didn’t survive this night.

And it felt like she might not if he didn’t touch her. If she couldn’t taste him.

But he didn’t make her beg for long.

He dipped his head and claimed her mouth, his tongue forcing her lips apart. She opened to him, took him in deep, kissed him until she was dizzy. There had never been a kiss like this. Not for her, maybe not for anyone. One that stole her every thought, her every worry. One that reduced her to nothing more than need, nothing more than a deep, physical ache that demanded satisfaction.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, her body moving against his, no longer in rhythm with the music, but in rhythm with her own desire. She forked her fingers through his thick, curly hair, held him against her, poured all of herself, all of the desire that had been building in her for so many years, into a kiss that she shouldn’t be having. A kiss that was forbidden to her.

And that just made her angry. More determined to get what she needed tonight. What she would never have after tonight. This was her last chance.

A secret thrill. A secret bit of adventure. No one ever had to know.

“Come back to my hotel with me,” she said, against his mouth, unable to part from him for even a second.

He didn’t answer—he only kissed her again, and she realized there was no way he’d heard her, not over the music.

She pulled his head down and put her lips against his ear. “I have a hotel room. Come back with me.”

That was all the encouragement he needed. Faster than she could change gears, Alex was dragging her off the dance floor and out into the warm summer night. He paused outside the club door, pushed her against the wall and kissed her, the motion and the kiss savage, explosive. Perfect. She arched into him, rubbing her breasts against the hard wall of his chest, trying to find some satisfaction for the need that was tearing through her like a beast.

“Now,” she said, her eyes closed tight. “We have to go back now. I need... I can’t...”

“I agree.”

“It’s close. I think it’s close. I’m dizzy, actually. The city is sideways. It’s hard to tell where the hell we are.”

Alex laughed and pressed his forehead against hers. “I know exactly where the hell I am.”

“And where is that?”

“With you. I don’t need to know anything more.”

She exhaled sharply, tried to ignore the stab of emotion in her chest. This wasn’t supposed to make her feel. “Wow. You do say the best things. You really do.”

He took her hand. “Lead the way.”

She did. And somehow, right then, she felt more like herself than she ever had. Like the two halves of her life, the woman she was in public and the woman she was in private had merged together for the first time.

She felt brave. She felt certain.

She felt happy.

A whisper of who she’d been before she’d learned to shut herself down. Before the Colin debacle. And blackmail. Before she’d had to face her father and tell him what she’d done. And what the fallout from it might be.

I can’t protect you anymore, Rachel. These choices you’re making are dangerous. People, men, will always try to take advantage of you because of your connections, the press will always hunt you because of who you are, and you’re courting it. No more. If you keep on like this, I will not cover for you again. I love you too much to enable you this way.

And less kind words from her mother. A woman in your position can’t afford these mistakes. It’s not only immoral, it’s dangerous. Think of what the press will say. About you. Us. I haven’t spent all these years helping propel us to this position in society to watch you tear it down with stupid behavior!

Angry words spoken in private. A side of her mother only Rachel ever saw.

But she’d taken those words, balled them up and stored them in her chest, kept them close, ever since.

Except...except this moment.

But it was different. It was out of time, out of the real world entirely. And Alex didn’t even know who she was. He didn’t want to use her. Didn’t want to get her into a compromising position so he could sell photographs, or a dirty video.

Even Ajax, one of the kindest people she knew, wanted her for her name more than anything else.

But that wasn’t Alex. Alex just wanted her.

That simple thought pushed everything dark away from her mind. Everything in the past, everything in the future. There was just now. And now was perfect.

They started walking down the sidewalk, then they were running, laughing. She bent and kicked her shoes off, carrying them in her free hand as she ran barefoot down the stone walk.

They stopped in front of the hotel, the lights from the lobby casting a glow on Alex, on the fountains in front of the building. “Oh, yes,” she said, breathing heavily. “I’m in a nice hotel.”

“So you are.” He laughed, the sound reverberating through her body.

“Don’t feel awkward or anything.”

“I don’t,” he said.

Of course he wouldn’t. It was hard to imagine him feeling awkward anywhere. “Good. I need to know at least three more things about you before we go in, okay?”

“Depends. Are you going to do a credit check?”

“I swear not,” she said, “I won’t even fingerprint you. But...you’re a stranger, and I can’t have that.”

“Really? And what is it that will make me not a stranger?”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and when she opened them, Alex filled her visions. “Favorite color?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Come on. What color is your bedspread?”

He laughed. “Black.”

“Okay. How old are you?”

“Twenty-six,” he said.

“Oh.” For some reason the answer sent a little thrill through her. “Well, I’m twenty-eight, I hope that doesn’t deter you.”

“Not in the least,” he said. “I might, in fact, be more turned on now. If such a thing is possible.”

Her pulse kicked into a higher gear. “One more thing,” she said. “Would you rather...sleep under the stars, or in a beautiful suite?”

“Either. As long as you were with me. Preferably in a state of undress.”

The air rushed out of her lungs. “Well, that was the perfect answer.”

“Can we go in?”

“Yes,” she said, of course, since there was no way she was saying no now. “You aren’t a stranger now, so it’s all good.”

“I’m glad,” he said.

They went into the hotel and passed quickly through the lobby. She pushed the button and stood in front of the elevator, waiting, her nerves building as each second ticked by.

As soon as they were inside, as soon as the doors closed behind them, he pushed her back against the wall, his mouth hungry on hers, his hands roaming over her curves.

She could feel the hard press of his erection against her hip, could feel his arousal, not just there, but in every line of his body. The tense hold of his shoulders, the thundering of his heart, the urgency in his kiss.

She’d never in her wildest fantasies imagined herself here. Like this. With a man kissing her like he was starving for her. She never imagined she would be kissing a man as though she was starving for him, in truth.

Her past experiences included fizzy, alcohol-flavored kisses and heavy coercion. This wasn’t alcohol going to her head. Nor was it coerced. It wasn’t about rebelling against her neat and orderly life. It wasn’t about a sense of duty. It was about her.

They were at her floor not nearly fast enough and all too quickly. Any slower, she might have died—or he might have just taken her straight to heaven with her clothes on. She was close, so close, and she knew it.

She might not have ever considered herself overly passionate but she had a sex drive. And since Ajax was patiently waiting to take things to the next level, that meant she was an expert at satisfying that sex drive on her own.

Orgasm she knew. But having it entirely out of her control? That was a whole different matter. She’d given Colin pleasure, but he’d never really touched her. And anyway, that was eleven years ago, and the extent of her experience with men and any sort of nudity.

Now she was here, and Alex was definitely touching. And her pleasure was all in his control. It was both exhilarating and terrifying.

She walked out of the elevator into the hall, her legs shaking. She dug through her purse, trying to find the little key card she’d thrown in there earlier. Why had she been so careless? She hadn’t had this in mind, that’s for sure. She hadn’t known there would be urgency. She had all the urgency and no flipping key....

She scraped the bottom of her purse with her hand and came up with the card. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed. “That was sacrilege, wasn’t it?” she asked, looking back at Alex.

“Why?”

“Thanking God because I found the key so we could...well, this is fornication, isn’t it?”

“It will be in five minutes,” he said. “Right now it’s just lust.”

“Pretty powerful stuff.” She turned to the door and slid the key in the slot. The light turned green. “So, I guess we go in now.”

He stopped and touched her cheek with the tip of his finger, the gesture so tender it shocked her. “You’re very pretty when you’re nervous.”

Her face heated. “Well, that’s nice of you to say.”

His blue eyes locked with hers, so sincere, so focused. As if he could only see her, as if she was the only thing that mattered. No one had ever looked at her like that, not ever. “I mean it.”

She coughed, her throat suddenly tight with emotion. “Well...thank you. But I’m less nervous when you kiss me. Maybe we should go with that?”

He didn’t have to be asked twice.

He pulled her into the room and onto the bed. She was flat on her back, the mattress soft beneath her, Alex hard over her. She didn’t have time to be nervous. She was too turned on, too in the moment.

There was nothing boyish about him now. The humorous light in his eyes was gone, replaced with something dark, feral. Dangerous.

And she liked it.

“I will be slow the next time,” he said. “I promise. I like foreplay.” He rose up onto his knees and stripped off his shirt. “And there will be some. Next time. Next time, I promise.” Then he reached into his shorts pocket and took out his wallet, pulling out a condom and throwing the wallet down onto the floor, followed quickly by the rest of his clothes.

She didn’t have time to be nervous—she was too busy looking at him. He was incredible, so much more than she’d imagined a man might be.

And she wanted... She just wanted.

He tugged the top of her dress down, bared her to him, lowered his head and sucked one nipple deep in his mouth as he pushed her skirt up over her hips.

He hooked his fingers into the sides of her panties and tugged them down her legs, then drew back for a moment, opening the condom and rolling it on quickly before he positioned himself between her thighs.

He put his hand beneath her bottom and tilted her up to him as he thrust deep inside her. She winced against the pain, fighting the urge to make a sound. Because she didn’t want to ruin the moment. Even with the pain it was the most beautiful moment ever. The most exciting and wild thing that had ever happened to her.

It was perfect.

If he noticed, he had no reaction. And she was glad. Instead, he thrust deep inside of her, pushing them both higher and higher until she was gasping. Until she was fisting his hair, the sheets, whatever she could get hold of so she didn’t fly off the bed and shatter into a million pieces.

The pain faded quickly, every thrust pushing her closer to the point of release. But it wasn’t an easy push. It wasn’t a gentle journey to the peak. It was fire and thunder—her release almost ripped from her as it hit, suddenly and before she could take a chance to breathe.

She shuddered out her release, clinging to his shoulders, legs wrapped around his calves. She was sure her nails were biting into his skin, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t.

He went still above her, a hoarse sound on his lips as he found his own pleasure. And then he was up, moving away from her and into the bathroom.

She lay there on her back, her dress pulled down over her breasts and up past her hips, trying to catch her breath, hands over her eyes. “Oh, dear Lord, what have I done?”

He came back in, the condom managed, the look on his face grim. “Now, you should have told me that,” he said.

“Told you what?” she asked, sitting up and trying to put her dress in place. Though he didn’t seem concerned with his nudity at all.

“That you were a virgin.”

“Oh. That. Well. I could have told you. It’s just that...”

“Just that what?”

“I didn’t want to. How stupid is that?”

He walked over to the bed and took her left hand in his, holding it up so she was eye level with her engagement ring. “Whoever gave you this? He’s an idiot.”

* * *

Rachel came back to the present, her eyes on the ring, just like they’d been in that moment after her first time with Alex.

They’d been together at least four times in the hours since then. And he’d been telling the truth. He did like foreplay. Not only that, he was good at it. Darn good.

She put the ring back down, a smile curving her lips.

She sat up slowly, the muscles in her body complaining. Alex had given her a little bit more exercise than she was used to. That made her smile widen. Which was stupid, maybe, but she felt...different. Giddy. Alive.

Half in love.

She closed her eyes. No. She didn’t want that. That was such a stupid cliché. She didn’t actually know the man. She’d been naked with him, that was all.

Except it was easy to remember how it was to dance with him. How it felt to hold his hand as she walked barefoot down a city sidewalk. How she’d been different with him. More alive.

Happy.

So maybe it wasn’t so stupid that she felt half in love. It was scary, though. She’d been...not in love, but infatuated with a guy before, with hideous results. But that had been different. It felt like another lifetime. Like it had happened to another girl.

She’d changed over the past eleven years. In ways that were necessary, but in ways that had left her feeling like she was trapped in skin that had become far too small.

And sometime last night, she’d changed again.

She got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, taking care of early morning necessities and looking at herself in the mirror. She looked... Her hair was a wreck. She was pretty sure the dark mark on her neck was a hickey.

She smiled. She should not be enjoying this. But she was.

Real life could be dealt with later.

She pushed her hair back and walked out into the hotel room again, and stopped when she saw Alex’s wallet on the floor. It was open, from when he’d taken out the condom and thrown it onto the ground. After that incident, he’d procured protection from the concierge. Much to her chagrin.

Well, and delight, if she was completely honest. She’d absolutely benefitted from the acquisition of a box of condoms.

She bent down and picked his wallet up without thinking. It was an expensive wallet. Black leather with fine stitching. Like something her father, or Ajax, would own. Strange because his clothes were so worn. Because he worked on a boat.

Her eyes skimmed over to his ID. He had an American driver’s license. Which seemed odd. Because he was Greek, no question. Though, perhaps his employer was American.

Okay, snoopy. Not really your business.

And it wasn’t. They weren’t trading life stories so it wasn’t really fair for her to be looking at his personal property.

Before she could snap the wallet shut and put it on the table, she read his name. Not on purpose. But she saw it, and then all she could do was stare.

She knew his name.

And for a full thirty seconds, she didn’t know from where.

Alexios Christofides.

She heard the name in Ajax’s voice. A growl, a curse. He’d been nettling Ajax for months. Buying shares in his business, reporting him to the IRS for suspected tax wrongdoing, reporting him to environmental agencies. All false accusations, but things that had cost time and money.

He wasn’t a cabin boy, that was for sure.

And he wasn’t a stranger.

She’d been seduced by her fiancé’s enemy.

She thought the floor might shift beneath her feet and fall out from beneath her like sand, dropping her back into the past, in a moment so close to this one it made her want to scream.

Colin, so angry over her refusal to sleep with him, revealing who he really was. What he really wanted from her.

If you don’t want to put out, that’s fine. But I have all those nice pictures of you. A very compelling video. Of what you did for me. I don’t need sex. A little money from the media will be even nicer.

She’d thought she was smarter. More protected. Different.

She was the same foolish girl she’d always been. Worse, even, because this time the villain had succeeded in his seduction. He’d more than succeeded.

What she’d done with him...what she’d let him do to her...

“Alexios?”

The man in her bed stirred and Rachel tried not to pass out. Tried not to vomit. Or run screaming from the room.

She had to know what had happened. She had to know if he knew who she was.

Of course he does. Like he’s here by accident? You can only be a naive fool to a certain point, moron.

“Alexios,” she said his name again and he sat up, a wicked smile curving his face. When he actually looked at her, the smile faded.

As if he knew, even half asleep, that he wasn’t waking to the postcoital scene he was hoping to be a part of. As if he knew that his response to the name had been wrong.

He’d probably already forgotten which woman he’d been in bed with. Which hotel.

That made her want to be violently ill. Or just violent.

But for the moment, she had to stay calm. She had to get answers.

“Rachel,” he said, his voice as strong as whiskey and good sex, going straight to her head and making her toes curl. “You should come back to bed.”

“I don’t... No.” She put her hand on her forehead. “Not right now. I...”

His eyes met with her hands. Where her fingers held his wallet. He looked back up at her, one black brow arched. Something in his manner changed. In an instant, he changed.

He pushed his dark curls off of his forehead and for a second she thought she was looking at a stranger. A naked stranger.

Then she realized that was what he was. She didn’t know this man. Not at all. She’d fooled herself into thinking they’d shared something. That their souls had met, or some such idiocy. But they hadn’t.

It only underlined her stupidity. Her weakness.

Last night, she’d felt like herself. Freed from all the layers of protection and expectation. Somehow slipped free of those well-meaning, soul-binding words spoken by her parents all those years ago. She’d felt real. Well, real Rachel was, it turned out, incredibly stupid. There was a reason she’d been kept in hiding.

“You know who I am, don’t you?” she asked.

He stood, the covers falling from around his waist, his body, his beautiful hard body, on display for her. And even now it made her heart leap into her throat. Like it was trying to climb out so it could get a look at the view.

“Why were you looking at my wallet?”

“It was on the floor. I picked it up. I thought, ‘nice wallet for a cabin boy.’ Clearly far too nice. So now you might as well tell me the truth.”

“I know who you are,” he said. “Imagine my surprise when you found me before I could find you. Imagine my further surprise when I realized I didn’t need a week or a special event to seduce you. You were a lot easier than I expected.”

“To what end?” she asked, her heart thundering, her hands shaking. “Why would you... Why...?”

“Because I want what he has. Everything. And I’ve had something very special to him now. Now we both know I’ve had you first.”

“You bastard,” she said, scouring the room for her clothes. “You...! This is my hotel room.” She stopped collecting her clothes and started getting his instead. “Get your clothes and get out.” She threw his shorts at him, then his shirt. “Out!”

He started dressing. “I don’t know who you think your fiancé is, but I know who he is.”

“And I know who you are! A... A... I can’t even think of a bad enough word for what you are. And you’re no kind of man.”

“You and I both know I am.”

“The ability to trick a woman into letting you put your hard penis inside of her does not make you a man!”

“Did I trick you? Or did I, like you, not tell you everything. I hardly forced you into bed.”

No, he hadn’t. And that meant it was her fault. Her stupid, stupid fault.

“But you...seduced me knowing that you would ruin my engagement. With the express intent of doing it!”

“And you thought my seducing you would leave it intact? Is that it? Or are you just pissed because I planned it?”

“Yes! I am pissed that you planned it. I thought we had something... I thought...” Her throat closed off, emotion, anger choking our her words.

“Such a virgin, Rachel,” he said, his tone dry.

“No, I’m not, and I think we both know it. Because of you!” And even before that she’d lacked innocence. Which meant she should have known, she did know. But he’d made her forget.

“Because of you, agape,” he said, tugging his slacks up and doing the button. “You made your choice. Don’t be angry with me because I outed you as being faithless.”

Before she could measure her response, his wallet was sailing out of her hands, skimming his ear, hitting the wall behind him. “Out!” she screamed.

She had just destroyed her engagement. The future of her family’s company. All for sex. Sex with a man who’d been using her. Tricking her. Trying to hurt Ajax...

Ajax, who hadn’t deserved this treatment at all. Who cared for her. And her father... After all he’d done for her...

She pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Out. Out. Out,” she said.

“Rachel...”

“You ruined my life!” she screamed, flinging her arms wide. “I thought you were different. I thought you made me...feel something and you were just lying. I blew up my life for you and it was a lie!”

“I never promised you anything. You made a mistake. Unhappily for you.”

“Don’t call him,” she said, her stomach sinking. “Just don’t call him.”

“I don’t have to,” he said. “You won’t marry him.”

“One night with you and I’m going to leave the man I’ve been engaged to for years? I hardly think so,” she said. Only a few moments ago, she would have. Just a few short moments ago.

She would have exposed herself to scandal, exposed her family to it. She would have destroyed everything she’d spent years rebuilding for him. What had she been thinking?

And now...what had she done? What was wrong with her? She hadn’t thought, not for a moment. She’d been feeling. Lost in some inane fantasy that had no hope of ever coming true.

Now she was sitting here, all of it burned down, ash at her feet, the hero of the story revealed as a villain.

“Just go. And please don’t contact me. Please don’t call him, don’t... Don’t.”

“Now, why,” he said, his lip curling, “would I agree to that? I got exactly what I wanted. I am a man who makes careful plans, agape, and I don’t plan on changing them just because you shed a tear.”

He strode across the room, to the hotel door, and walked out. He didn’t even look at her again. Didn’t spare her one more glance as he closed the door behind him.

Rachel sank onto the floor, her knees giving out entirely. And it was then she realized that she was still completely naked. But it didn’t matter. Putting on clothes wouldn’t make her feel less exposed. Wouldn’t make her feel less...dirty.

That’s what it was. She felt dirty.

She’d betrayed Ajax.

That was the truth no matter who Alex really was. But his betrayal was like salt in her wounds, as they would be salt in Ajax’s.

Ajax...

She would have been prepared to end the relationship if there had even been a chance that...

That Alex wasn’t a lying, horrible, hideous bastard. But there wasn’t. He was. And that meant she had to go back home. The wedding had to go forward. Her life had to go forward. As if this hadn’t happened.

This was why she’d avoided passion. This was why she’d avoided doing things that were risky, and crazy. Because when she took chances, she got hurt. Because when she trusted, it came back to haunt her. On her knees, her chest burning so bad she could hardly breathe, she remembered exactly why she’d taken to hiding herself.

Never again. She would go back to Ajax, to safety. And if Alex told him about tonight, she would beg for his forgiveness. She stared ahead, eyes dry and burning like her insides.

She would forget the heat and fire she’d discovered tonight. She would forget Alexios Christofides.

CHAPTER THREE

HE’D TOLD HIMSELF he wasn’t going to the wedding. He’d told himself so as he’d boarded a plane in New York that was headed for Greece. He’d told himself so as he’d reclined in first class, accepting more glasses of wine than he normally would during travel.

He’d told himself so as he drove from the airport to the Holt Estate, where he knew the wedding was being held.

Everyone knew where the wedding was being held. It was international news. The wedding of enigmatic businessman and heartthrob Ajax Kouros to the beloved Holt Heiress. Photos of the event would cost a premium, the world waiting with bated breath for information, for a glimpse.

It had been shoved in his face on every news publication since he’d left Corfu. Since he’d been thrown out of Rachel Holt’s bed.

Rachel.

He couldn’t think of her without aching. That soft skin, that smile. The way she’d made love with him, all enthusiasm and clumsy motions. She had been inexperienced—well, non-experienced—but she had wanted him.

Never in his life had he been wanted like that. Not just in a sexual sense.

At some point over the course of that night he had forgotten. That he wasn’t just Alex. That she wasn’t just Rachel.

He had been a man, who wanted a woman. Not a man twisted and bent on revenge.

But her sweet voice piercing his sleep with Alexios had brought him straight back. And then it had all gone to hell. He hadn’t enjoyed that moment. Hadn’t enjoyed her realization that he was Ajax’s enemy.

That fact had surprised him. And then when she’d asked, with tears in her eyes, that he not tell Ajax, he damn well hadn’t done it.

And what was the point of going to all that trouble to have Ajax’s woman if he didn’t let him know it? He’d clearly passed the point of seducing her up the aisle so he could rob Ajax of his acquisition of Holt, a fact he’d learned was contingent on the marriage, so at the very least he could stop their marriage and deprive him of the company that way.

And yet he hadn’t made the call.

It was a mystery to him. As was the fact that he was now at the Holt Estate with an expertly forged invitation. A forged invitation that allowed him to be one of the few guests admitted early to enjoy canapés and a tour of the grounds.

He’d had his personal assistant start working on the invitation a couple of weeks ago. Merely a precaution. And it had turned out to be a good thing, since he was here.

He hadn’t been planning on coming, but it was always nice to cover your bases. If there was one thing Alex knew for sure, it was that life had no place for the lazy or the honest.

It was best to be hardworking and morally flexible.

He handed the invite over to the woman standing at a podium. She was dressed all in black, her blond hair pulled back into a neat bun. Everything about the décor, from the ribbons to the flowers, was restrained. Elegant. Nothing unnecessarily frilly or romantic.

The picture of the woman Rachel seemed to be in the media, but not the woman he’d met that sun-drenched day in Greece.

He was filing that away. It could be useful information.

The woman scanned a code on the back of the invitation—that had been the tricky part, but his PA was friends with an acquaintance of Ajax’s PA, which made getting in to reproduce the sequence on the codes possible—then smiled at him brightly when it made a nice sound that gave him the impression it had been approved, and gestured behind her.

“Follow the path to the garden. You’ll find that refreshments are already being served, Mr. Kyriakis.”

Nice alias. Seeing as he’d lived his entire adult life with one, he knew a good one when he heard it.

“Thank you.”

He followed her instructions, and the neatly groomed path, to the back of the house. It was expansive, with rows of chairs set up facing an altar and the sea. Everything was white. Crisp and pure.

Again, very like the Rachel the media was so fond of. Nothing like the woman he’d experienced.

The woman he’d experienced hadn’t seemed so pure when she’d been with him. Legs wrapped around his hips, her breath hot on his ear as she’d moaned her pleasure.

Heat washed over his skin. Prickles of sensation that bloomed from his neck and down his arms. He flexed his fingers, tried to shake off the sensation. It wasn’t as though Rachel was the first woman he’d had.

There were any number of options available to a young man who found himself out on the streets and unsupervised from the age of fourteen. If nothing else, hooking up had often given him a bed to crash in, and he’d had no complaints about that.

So why on God’s depraved earth was he so fascinated by a night of sex with a virgin? He couldn’t fathom it.

Perhaps it was extra satisfying because he had taken her from Ajax. Because he’d robbed him of what he had been surely saving as a wedding night prize. Why else would he have left her untouched?

Just thinking about the man, being this close to him, made his stomach burn. If he hadn’t decided years ago that assassination was a bad plan, he would have been considering it now.

Well, he was imagining it, but he wouldn’t really do it.

He was a bastard—life had made him that way. But he wasn’t entirely cold-blooded. Unlike Ajax.

Unlike their father.

No matter his position now, Ajax had been there, just as Alex had been. A young teenager who had taken advantage of the excess on offer.

The women, like Alex’s mother, who would have done anything for their next fix. Who were slaves in every way. Victims. Living in poverty while surrounded by opulence. Kept on a leash of addiction, and in his mother’s case, a strange attachment to the master of the manor.

A twisted thing she’d called love. The kind of love that, when severed, had left her to bleed out onto the floor. A crimson stain in Alex’s memory that he could never wipe away.

Years and success wouldn’t change that. Wouldn’t bring her back. And yet Ajax stood at the top now, unaffected. With a family. A woman who had always appeared, to Alex, at least, to love him.

He looked unscathed, unspoiled. Ajax could pretend at respectability all he wanted but Alex knew the truth.

Because the truth was in him, too. But at least he never played as if he was anything other than a bastard. Ajax played as though he’d walked through it all and come out clean.

Alex knew he would never be clean.

He curled his fingers into fists and looked up at the house. There was a small group of people headed inside, led by a woman wearing black, which was clearly the uniform of the event staff.

He started in their direction, melting into the back of the group. Everyone was rapt, paying close attention to what the woman was saying about a fresco on the exterior wall that had been moved from an old church. Blah blah. He didn’t care.

Greece was old. Like that was news.

He’d spent nights in more crumbling ruins than he could count. He was a fan of mod cons. As long as they didn’t come at the price of living under the roof of a violent, sexually deviant psychopath.

Yeah, he’d preferred the ruins to that. He preferred the street to that. Starvation and cold and everything else that came with it.

He had run from that life. From all that it represented. He would not become a part of it.

He followed them into the house and as soon as they rounded the first corner, he separated from them and headed up the stairs. No one stopped him. Because he looked like he belonged. A right he’d earned, if only recently.

This was his world now. He was no longer someone who could be stepped on by the rich and powerful.

He was the rich and powerful. He went where he liked, he did what he liked.

“I have something to give the bride,” he said to a passing servant. “Where might I find her?”

“Miss Rachel is in her suite. Down the hall and just to your left,” the woman answered without blinking.

Because he looked the part. He spoke with confidence. And as a result, no one questioned whether or not he belonged.

He nodded once and continued on down where the woman had indicated.

He hadn’t been going to come. But he was glad he had.

* * *

She’d never prayed so hard for her period to come in all her life. She’d never prayed for it to come. She’d taken it for granted. The cramps, the teariness. It had started when she was fifteen and it had gone on, regularly, for all the time since. Just a little signifier that it was the middle of the month. Nothing more.

Well, not right now.

Now the absence of it was about to send her into a panic attack. She’d been walking around her bedroom in her bra and panties for the past twenty minutes, a tampon on the nightstand, right next to an unopened pregnancy test.

Neither had been used at this point. One month since her night with Alex. One month of alternating between cursing his name and lying in a dark room just staring at the ceiling, unable to cry because tears were a release she wouldn’t allow herself. A rush of emotion, too uncontrolled for the likes of her.

And then her period hadn’t come. Even after it had passed fashionably late, she’d still been praying the floodgates might open and forth would come the crimson tide, and that the pregnancy test could remain unopened. But no such luck.

Tampon or test. She was going to be opening one of them in the next few minutes.

And it was rapidly becoming clear which.

She was already six days late. This little song and dance between her and those two items had been going on since the first morning.

She finally reached down and grabbed the pregnancy test.

And suddenly the world just sort of tipped to the side and she saw herself clearly, standing there, almost ready to marry another man while she was potentially pregnant with Alex’s baby.

And she knew there was no way she could get married today.

Her hands started shaking, her throat going dry. Oh...Jax, please forgive me.

So now she was just going to have to...tell him. Right before the wedding. But there was something she had to do first.

“Okay,” she said to the little white-and-pink box. “Let’s do this.”

Her bedroom door swung open and she whirled around, clutching the box to her breasts in an instinctive attempt at modesty. Until she realized she was advertising that she was holding a pregnancy test and whipped it behind her back, her thigh crossing over the front of her other thigh in an attempt to hide that she was in very brief panties.

Then she froze, because she realized who her intruder was. For almost a full second, she was frozen, caught by those arresting blue eyes. Again.

It was almost like all that thinking about him had just...conjured him here. But at the worst possible moment.

His hair was shorter. His body wrapped in a custom-made suit and not in those thin, faded work clothes she’d first seen him in.

How strange to think it was the other Alex that had been a disguise, while this was the real him. It hardly seemed possible.

Then suddenly, she was hit by the bright, clear smack of reality. She hated Alex. Hated him. It was her wedding day. He was here. And she was afraid she was pregnant with his baby.

“What the ever-loving hell are you doing here?” she asked.

He seemed frozen. As she’d been only a moment before.

“At least close the door,” she said, realizing that anyone who walked by was going to see her standing there in her undies.

He obeyed, stepping into the room.

“I am naked,” she hissed.

“You’re not.”

“Close enough.”

“Not anywhere near close enough.” He was looking at her. Intently. As though he was trying to gauge the opaqueness of her underwear.

“Stop that! And what are you doing here?”

“I am here for your wedding, agape.”

“Weird. I don’t think Ajax penciled his mortal enemy onto our guest list,” she said, her fingers curling tightly around the pregnancy test still hidden behind her back.

She was trapped. Standing there in lacy bridal undies, unable to do anything for fear he’d see the test.

“He might have. Did you look to see if I was listed under Enemy or Mortal?”

“I was looking in the A’s for As—”

“I won’t let you marry him,” he said, his voice turning into a feral growl.

“What?”

“You don’t know what he is.”

She lifted one shoulder, the casual gesture at odds with her internal panic. With the fact that when he’d burst through that door he’d blown through her carefully cultivated, calm façade, yet again. “I’ve known the man for more than fifteen years. I think I know who he is.”

“You’ve never even slept with him.”

“I’m gonna,” she said, edging away from him toward the bathroom, “tonight.”

He strode toward her, blue eyes like chips of ice. He put his arm around her waist and hauled her up against his chest. “You will not.”

“Yes, I will,” she said, words pouring out of her now, with no thought of control or decorum or any of the other stuff she was usually so attached to. She was lying, because before Alex had come in, she’d decided she couldn’t do it. But she wanted to...hurt him if it was possible. To cause him some kind of discomfort because he sure had caused enough for her. “I’m going to have sex with him—” a shiver of displeasure coursed through her at the thought “—tonight. I’m going to let him inside of me. I’m going to do all the dirty naked things with him that I did with you!”

And then he leaned down and kissed her. As if he had every right to do it. As if she didn’t have a wedding scheduled to happen in just four hours. As if she hadn’t told him that she hated him and never wanted to see him again.

As if there was no reality. No Ajax. No vengeance gone wrong. No angry words. As if there was nothing more than passion. Fire and heat. She wrapped an arm around his neck, the other still behind her back, and parted her lips, let him slide his tongue against hers.

She kissed him back because for some reason, when Alex touched her, she couldn’t think.

Because suddenly a month since the time they’d been apart didn’t matter. And neither did anything else. Nothing but the kiss. The heat that flooded her body, her mind, her soul.

She wrapped her other arm around his neck and hit him in the ear with the edge of the box. He jerked his head back and looked to the side, and she followed his line of vision and froze.

Oh. Bloody perfect.

“What is this?” he asked, pulling back, his hand encircling her wrist.

“Nothing.”

He arched a brow. “Try again.”

“It is a...gift. For a friend.”

“A gift for a friend?”

“Yessss,” she said, drawing the word out to give herself time to think of more to add to her very stupid lie. “Because she asked for something that could tell the future and I thought...Magic 8 Ball or pregnancy test? And I went with pregnancy test because it gives specific yes or no answers to very specific questions.”

“Do you think you’re pregnant?”

“Right now? I think I’m absent a period. Which under normal circumstances would be like, ‘Hey, great timing, because I’m supposed to be getting married.’”

“But?”

“Under the circumstances of ‘I slept with my fiancé’s enemy a month ago’ I find it a bit worrisome, and yes, I think I might be pregnant.”

“Go and find out,” he said, moving away from her. “Now.”

“So now I’m supposed to pee on your command? What if I don’t have to go?”

“You were about to go—don’t play that way.”

His jaw was set, his skin pale. He wasn’t taking this much better than she was. “Honestly, Alex, what do you care if I am?”

“I care because I will be a part of that child’s life.”

“You will not be,” she said, the words coming out before she had a chance to think them through.

“You think I’m going to let that man near any child of mine?” he asked, rage rolling off him like a force field, pushing her back. “I know what happens to children who get near the Kouklakis family. I doubt you do.”

“Ajax is...he’s not a Kouklakis. He’s...”

“Got an alias. How foolish are you? He’s changed his name.”

“I don’t...”

“Go and take the test.”

She didn’t even have it in her to argue with him now. She nodded slowly, holding the box in numb fingers as she backed into the bathroom. Alex watched Rachel’s retreating form, his heart pounding so hard he thought it might hammer through his chest and flop onto the bed, leaving a crimson stain on that pristine white duvet of hers.

A child.

His child.

This wasn’t about revenge anymore. It hadn’t been, not from the moment he’d claimed Rachel as his own. He wanted her, and he would have her. That was why he was here.

And because he refused to allow Ajax Kouros anywhere near a son or daughter of his.

No, Ajax didn’t deal in human or drug trafficking, and Alex knew that. He knew, from the extensive research he’d done on the subject, that Ajax’s business was entirely legitimate.

But bad blood was bad blood. Alex knew it. He felt it. He’d been born with the same blood as Alex, and he would never truly escape it. Alex hadn’t, why should Ajax?

He shook it off. That thought. That burning sensation he felt whenever he imagined poison running through his own veins.

Things had changed for him.

Alex had made his fortune playing the stock market, first with other people’s money, and now with his own. He was a gambler by nature, and doing it in the realm of the financial had been lucrative. Because like any good gambler, he had a skill for it. It wasn’t pure luck, it was research. Memory. A natural feel for it.

It had earned him millions. On his twenty-sixth birthday, only six months ago, he’d netted his first billion.

He wasn’t powerless anymore. He never would be again.

The bathroom door opened and Rachel appeared, white-faced, blue eyes watery.

“What?” he asked.

“There were two lines.”

“Well, what does that mean?” he asked, tension making his heart race, pumping too much restless energy in his muscles.

“It means that I’m pregnant. And before you ask—it is your baby, I won’t lie to you about that.”

“You will not marry him.”

“You know there are like...a thousand wedding guests coming? A hundred reporters?”

“You have two options, Rachel,” he said, the adrenaline that was spiking through him making his mind run quickly. “You leave with me, now, don’t speak to anyone. Or you go forward with the wedding. But mark my words, if you do that, I will stop the ceremony and I will tell everyone that you are pregnant with my child. That I seduced you in Corfu and that you gave it up to me in record time. Even without a paternity test, your precious Ajax will know. Because I’m the only man that’s had you. And a due date with that big of a gap from your wedding night won’t lie.”

“The press...”

“The press is here, and they’ll hear and report every word I say. But the decision is yours.”

“It’s not mine,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. She was still wearing nothing more than her underwear. “I’m in an impossible situation here. I can’t go back. I can’t fix this. I can’t...” she paused. “I could get a...” She looked away from him. “I could make it go away.”

His stomach clenched. “No.”

She shook her head, her blue eyes filling with tears. “You’re right. I can’t. I just... I can’t.”

“Come with me.”

“And what?”

“Marry me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU’RE INSANE,” RACHEL SAID, aiming the air-conditioning vent at her face as Alex’s red sports car peeled out of the driveway of the family estate.

Holy crap. She’d done it. She was running away from her wedding. She had...almost nothing. A few clothes, her favorite shoes. Her computer, her phone, her books.

But when he’d told her about the options, it was like seeing ahead, straight and clear. She could go out there, dressed all in white, the virginal bride, and promise herself to Ajax, knowing she was carrying another man’s baby. Knowing the press would slaughter all involved if Alex strode down the aisle after her and told everyone in attendance what she’d done.

That was something she’d known she couldn’t do even before she’d confirmed the pregnancy.

She knew the position she was in. She’d been made so fully aware of it that day in her father’s office when he’d told her he would no longer shield her from the scandal she was exposing herself to.

She’d managed to stay perfect in the eyes of the public and because of that the media had placed her on a pedestal. That meant that any whiff of scandal would send a mob of reporters out to knock her straight off it.

Nobody liked a paragon, not really. They only kept her around for the chance to see her fall. She’d been spared that fate. Her father had protected her from the consequences of her actions, and after seeing the extent to which she could have ruined things for herself she’d decided that she would be playing the part of dutiful daughter, and wife, for the rest of her life.

And all she’d done was delay the inevitable—she saw that now.

It would be vicious when they found out about this, and no matter how she played this, she would come out the villain. She knew it for certain. But she didn’t have the strength to have it happen in front of an audience. To let Alex say his piece like that, in front of all those guests and reporters, without any control for what was said or how.

The thought of it... It felt like her whole life, the life she’d taken such great pains to build from the time she was seventeen, was slipping through her fingers. She had become The Holt Heiress. Rachel Holt, style icon and media sweetheart. Eternal hostess, role model and...and what else she didn’t know.

That night with Alex had brought something out in her she hadn’t known had existed, and she was paying for it dearly now.

Stepping off that straight and narrow path had proven to have some pretty permanent consequences. And right now, she was taking a temporary leave of absence from those consequences. Because this way, she didn’t have to look at Ajax’s face when he found out. Or her father’s.

Or Leah’s.

She took her phone out. “I have to text Leah at least.” She thought of her sister, who was all set to be maid of honor in the wedding. Her lovely, sweet sister who’d always gotten such crap from the press, but who was one of the best people Rachel had ever known.

It made her sick to think how Leah would worry.

How her father would worry.

And Ajax...

She had ruined everything. She was going to panic. She was officially on the verge of a panic attack.

“Don’t text them until our plane is about to leave. And why am I insane?”

“Because everything is insane!” She exploded. “And you want me to marry you. I am not marrying you. I don’t know you. I don’t like you, either.”

“How can you dislike me if you don’t know me?”

“Fine. I don’t know you very well, and what I do know about you, I don’t like.”

“You like my body.”

“And if you were only a body, maybe that would matter. But there is, unfortunately, a personality beneath those hard muscles and it freaking blows.”

“Does it?”

“You’re a liar. You’re hell-bent on ruining my fiancé’s life, and I don’t even know why, and you used me to get revenge on him.”

“And then didn’t do anything about it.”

“You came today.”

“Yeah, so I might have done something. But I wasn’t going to come to the wedding so I wasn’t planning on doing anything anymore. It’s just...it’s just that then I ended up coming. And it was a good thing I did.”

“It was not.”

“You would have married him then?”

“No.”

“I thought not.”

“Why do you hate him, incidentally? It seems like this might be really important to my future.” She looked down at her hands and noticed they were shaking.

“As I told you, Ajax Kouros is a created name. A created identity. Hell, mine is, too, for the most part. Christofides is anyway. I was never called by a last name at all.”

“How is that possible?”

“I was the son of a woman who couldn’t remember her real name. Or if she did, she chose never to use it. ‘Meli’ was all she ever called herself. Honey. I think it was a double entendre of some kind. We lived in Ajax’s father’s compound. The infamous Nikola Kouklakis.”

“What?”

“I suppose you’ve heard of him.”

“The depth of that trafficking ring was...horrendous. When it was broken up a few years ago...”

“Yes, it was shocking. So many people. So many lives ruined. My mother wasn’t one who was kidnapped. She was seduced. By the drugs. By the money. By love of some kind. We lived in the compound. As did Ajax. I remember seeing him and thinking he was quite something with his suits. The cars. But I learned very quickly to be afraid of him, because he was the big boss’s son. Because what if he saw me causing trouble?”

“Alex...I don’t... This can’t be.”

“What? You think I goad him for fun? I goad him because I don’t think he deserves any of what he has, not while so many of us live with the lasting wounds of where his fortune came from.”

“But he didn’t earn any of it from...anywhere bad. He came to my family when he was a boy. He got work with my father. He built up from nothing.”

“You don’t know him like I do. You think you do, Rachel, but you don’t know him.”

“I do.”

“Why had you never slept with him?”

“He’s not...very passionate. And I figured I wasn’t, either, so fine.”

He chuckled, a dark, humorless sound. “I witnessed some of his behavior back at the compound. He was with the women there. He’s certainly not passionless, and knowing his background I find it worrisome more than anything that he hasn’t touched you. Perhaps he was just going to savor your virginity.”

Her face heated, anger and anxiety shooting through her. “He didn’t know I was a virgin. I had a...a relationship before him, and I didn’t... I obviously didn’t sleep with him, but it wasn’t chaste. Okay? And Ajax and I never discussed it, so he really didn’t know.”

“Trust me, agape, he knew.”

“You didn’t.”

“I only knew you for an afternoon.”

“It had some lasting consequences,” she said, leaning against the window of the car and watching the scenery fly by. “Why am I going with you again?”

“You don’t want me destroying your reputation in the press? Or destroying Ajax at the altar, though I can’t imagine why.”

Her head was swimming. She couldn’t even imagine the Ajax she knew, the man who seemed to spend twenty-four hours a day in a crisply pressed suit, prowling the halls of a drug house and mingling with prostitutes. It didn’t make sense.

“I only know what I know about him.”

And that of all the things that she felt right now—which were blessedly cushioned by shock or she would be rocking in a corner— heartbreak wasn’t one of them. So the other thing she could add to the list of Very Obvious Things She Knew was that she did not love Ajax, for certain.

That part of her was relieved to be fleeing the wedding, even if it was with Alexios Christofides.

Even if she was having his baby.

Her stomach pitched. No, she wasn’t relieved about that. She couldn’t even really think about all that.

“You aren’t going to hold me prisoner, are you?” she asked when the car pulled up to the airport.

“If I wanted to do that, I would have done it back in Corfu.”

“I suppose.”

“There’s no suppose about it. I had you wrapped around my finger, agape mou.”

She gritted her teeth and opened the door to the car. He followed, and an employee came out for their bags. Not the normal treatment, even when she flew, and she was accustomed to first class.