# Bought For Her Innocence

Tara Pammi

£100,000 for her virginity. Going once, going twice…The money isn’t an issue for Greek tycoon Dmitri Karegas. He has plenty of that. It’s her. Jasmine Douglas – the only woman who knows the depths of depravity Dmitri dragged himself up from. And now only Dmitri can help when she’s forced to put her virginity up for sale.Sold to the highest bidder!Yet Jasmine is not the sweet girl he remembers. She’s a fire-cat who hates him with a vengeance. But beneath that lies an undeniable chemistry. Now Dmitri must decide what to do with her…and her innocence!Discover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/tarapammi

“Tell me, Dmitri,” Jasmine commanded, fully aware of what she was asking and no longer confused about her own want for him, no longer guilty or ashamed about it.

She’d never been an innocent except in the most technical sense, anyway.

Still, Dmitri had given her a choice.

She wanted him—she had known that from the beginning. But tonight there was no shame or weakness that came with that want. Tonight there was nothing but the two of them.

“Because I realized the inevitability of this thing between us.”

His soft voice only amplified the spiraling tension in the room.

“If not today, tomorrow. If not tomorrow … it’s going to consume us both. I have never denied myself something I want. I want you. Every time you look at me all I can think of is being inside you. Every time you lash at me all I can think of is kissing your mouth … To hell with your debt and my honor … To hell with pretending I’m something I’m not. Nothing in the last decade has made me as hungry or as desperate as you have, Jas. So, do you want this for as long as it will last? Do you have the guts to actually take me on, Jas? Because if I touch you, I won’t stop.”

Greek Tycoons Tamed

When power and pride are undone by passion!

Stavros Sporades and Dmitri Karegas are renowned throughout the world as Greece’s most powerful and determined tycoons!

But have these untouchable Greek tycoons finally met the women who can tame them?

Find out in …

Stavros and Leah’s story:

Claimed for His Duty

August 2015

The wife Stavros hasn’t seen for nearly five years is back and demanding a divorce! But Stavros isn’t about to let his errant wife escape from his grasp … they have unfinished business!

Dmitri and Jasmine’s story:

Bought for Her Innocence

November 2015

Dmitri is known for the women who visit his bed as much as for the millions in his bank account. So when a childhood friend auctions her innocence Dmitri intends to be the highest bidder!

Bought for Her Innocence

Tara Pammi


www.millsandboon.co.uk

Tara Pammi can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs Alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!

Books by Tara Pammi

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

The Man to Be Reckoned With A Deal with Demakis

Greek Tycoons Tamed

Claimed for His Duty

Society Weddings

The Sicilian’s Surprise Wife

A Dynasty of Sand and Scandal

The Last Prince of Dahaar The True King of Dahaar

The Sensational Stanton Sisters

A Hint of Scandal A Touch of Temptation

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Greek Tycoons Tamed

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“I HAVE A proposition for you, Jasmine, that would allow you to pay off your brother’s debt within a year.”

Fear was a cold fist clamped over her spine, but Jasmine Douglas forced herself to stare steadily into the chilly green eyes of Noah King.

That word proposition from any other man of her acquaintance, while wholly unwelcome but an awful reality of her life, was something she was used to.

The clientele of the club where she worked, owned by Noah, was constantly under the impression that her scantily clad, gyrating-around-a-pole body was up for sale. That she was for sale.

She wasn’t and never would be.

Only soul-wrenching fear of the consequences of owing a debt to this man who owned three underground gambling clubs in London, and who was even now contemplating her future without blinking, had forced her into it.

She had barely buried her brother Andrew when she had learned of the debt he had piled up with Noah King, of all people. Desperation to resolve this debt and a need for survival forced her every night to take the stage.

So coming from Noah, that dangerous word turned the very blood in her veins into ice. “I’ve not missed a single payment, Noah,” she finally said through a dry mouth.

“Yes, but you’re barely making a dent. You have no assets that you could sell off, either.”

Her skin turned cold in the comfortably warm warehouse that was the headquarters of Noah’s empire. A couple of completely harmless-looking men had showed up at her flat this morning and very politely accompanied her to see Noah here.

Sweat pooling over her neck, Jasmine realized how foolish she was to assume that anything related to Noah King was harmless.

“Am I a prisoner, then?” she said, before she could hold back the reckless question.

Noah didn’t even blink as he casually peeled an orange and offered her some. “Until we find a satisfactory resolution, yes.”

Her gut dropped and she fought the instinct to turn around and run. No phrase had ever scared the daylights out of her like satisfactory resolution.

Why, oh, why hadn’t Andrew thought of where his debt would lead him one day? How could he have left her to deal with this dangerous man?

How, after all the promises he had made to her, could he have left her even worse than they had already been?

She had slaved for five years and was still stuck in this man’s power, like a fly stuck in a spider’s web. The more she tried to get out, the more she was ensnared.

On the heels of that thought came instant guilt. Andrew’s face flashed in front of her, his eagerness shining in his eyes, his expression so kind, lodging a lump in her throat.

We’ll get out of this dump one day, Jas. You just wait and watch. I’ll get us out of here.

Her brother had only wanted what was best for her, had only wanted to improve their lot in life. Had watched out for her for years.

Equipped with no skills, saddled with their mother’s drinking and responsibility for Jas, he had seen no other way out of the hellhole they had been born into except by trying his luck in Noah’s gambling den.

Not his fault that he had died so suddenly at only twenty-nine in an accident. Not his fault that everyone they had counted on had disappointed them.

And just like that, as though he was a thorn forever lodged under her skin, like a memory that had been burned into her brain, Dmitri came to mind.

Dmitri Karegas—godson of Giannis Katrakis, textile tycoon and internationally renowned playboy, collector of expensive toys like yachts and Bugattis and...beautiful women.

Dmitri, who had grown up along with them on the streets of London after his English father’s business went into bankruptcy, whom Andrew had shielded from his alcoholic father numerous times, Dmitri, whom Andrew had treated like a brother, Dmitri, to whom Andrew had gone in need and who had refused to help an old friend while he led a filthy rich life, who had looked at her so coldly at Andrew’s funeral and offered her cash.

Dmitri, whose exploits she followed with something bordering on obsession.

Thinking of Andrew would only weaken her; thinking of the man who might have helped was definitely a certain waste of her energies now.

It was as if there was glass in her throat as she looked back at Noah. “How much do I owe?”

“Thirty thousand pounds. It would take you another decade to pay it off if you continue as you do. But if you added a little something more personal to your menu at the club, then I see this going somewhere. You’re a huge hit, Jasmine, and I’ve been getting offer after offer...”

Noah’s words came as if from a distance, as if it was happening to some other person, as if it was the only way her mind could deal with it... Sweat gathered over her forehead and the back of her neck, the pungent odor of alcohol and sweaty bodies that clung to the walls of the warehouse cutting off her breath.

The only thing that did burn into her mind was that she would be one step closer to selling herself, if not all the way. That was what Noah had decided for her. If she didn’t get out now, she never would.

But how? Her lungs burned with the effort to draw breath; her knees locked in utter fear.

“...unless someone offers to buy out your debt, you have no choice.” Noah’s words floated into her mind again.

That was it. That was all she needed—someone to pay off her debt, to buy her from Noah.

And that someone had to be Dmitri.

No, that ashamed part of her screamed. If she went to him for help, he would know how low she had fallen. He would...

Better to sell herself to a known devil than an unknown one, the rational part of her asserted.

But even Dmitri couldn’t just extract her from Noah King with all the power he had amassed. Not after he had turned his back on this life and everything in it.

Not if he had become a soft man who spent his days lounging about on his yacht and nights with women who did his every bidding.

Jasmine would have to provide Dmitri an opening and pray that he would take the bait. And if he didn’t, the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

The article she had seen in the tech magazine that had been wrapped around the loaf of warm bread she had bought at the bakery only last week came to her. She had nothing to lose at this point and still, everything to gain.

“Put my virginity up for an auction,” she said loudly, the words burning her lips. “Give me a chance to pay it off at once.”

A deafening silence filled the hall. Jasmine could feel ten sets of eyes on her, her skin crawling at the obviously male interest in her. Steadily, she held Noah’s gaze, immensely grateful that at least his gaze was free of the openly nauseating lust she usually found herself the target of.

But then, Noah was, first and always, a businessman.

His silent appraisal of her gave Jasmine hope. Her breath ballooned up in her chest, crushing her lungs as she waited for his reply.

“You think someone will buy you,” he finally said, a greedy glint in his eye. She had caught his interest, she realized, a shaky relief filling her inside out.

“Yes,” she said, putting all her confidence in that single word. “Give me a week, Noah, please,” she added, desperation coating her throat.

“Three days,” Noah finally said.

A shake of his head had one of his thugs accompanying Jasmine to the room she had been brought to earlier.

For a second, Jasmine shook violently from head to toe, utter fear drenching her.

No, she couldn’t lose her nerve now.

Switching her prepaid cell phone on, Jasmine clicked the number she had memorized years ago on the clunky keys, every breath coming like a chore. It had been years; he wouldn’t probably have the same number anymore.

Even if he did have it, he might not care.

Pressing the cold phone to her forehead, Jasmine held back the hot sting of tears.

This had to work.

She backspaced a few times as her fingers shook on the phone screen. Her stomach tight, her hands clammy, she hit Send and crumpled against the floor.

* * *

In the process of putting his discarded shirt on, Dmitri Karegas flicked a glance toward the blonde provocatively stretched over his bed.

“Come back to bed,” she whispered without any fabricated coyness.

What was her name? Mandy? Maddie?

For the life of him, Dmitri couldn’t remember such a simple thing. And couldn’t manage any shame over it, either.

Work, party, sex—these were the parameters of his life. He didn’t hate women, didn’t remember deciding to make his life so. But there it was.

He had worked around the clock for the past two months, trying to undo the damage his business partner and oldest friend, Stavros, had wreaked on Katrakis Textiles’ stock with his uncharacteristic behavior, and finalizing a coup that had finally landed a nightclub he had been dying to acquire on his portfolio.

So he had found the blonde at the nightclub on his first night looking over his new toy.

She was everything he liked in a woman—willing, wanton, with a wicked tongue to boot. Even better, she didn’t fill the silence with inane chatter and hadn’t even dropped those usual hints about a budding relationship.

One creamy thigh bared as she slid upward in the bed. Yet as her rose-colored nipples puckered into tight buds under his continued stare, all he felt was an echo of arousal, the way a dog would lift its muzzle at the scent of meat.

Nothing else. Just like the numerous times over the past decade.

He worked, he collected his toys, he slept with willing women, yet somehow Dmitri never felt anything but a surface reaction, as if he was skimming through the very edge of life, incapable of sinking beneath the surface, forever on the outsides of it.

As if what he had turned off all those years ago to live through another day could never be turned on again. Even when he had helped Anya, who had become a sort of a friend, it had been a shallow echo of a different reality, another life where he had saved his mother that night.

Laughter, gravelly and as shocking as if a mountain rose in the midst of the sea, reached his ears, cutting off his unnerving reverie.

It was the afternoon that Leah had invited Stavros and herself to lunch aboard his yacht.

Looking around, he found his jeans and pulled them on.

He had always liked his godfather’s granddaughter. But ever since Leah and Stavros had found their way to each other, which he had been damn glad about because all the drama around their marriage had caused the Katrakis Textiles’ stock to sink, he had begun finding it distinctly uneasy to be in their company.

He knew what the source of that unease was but he was damned if he gave it voice. Neither did he feel up to the disapproving glance that would come from Stavros.

Even though he was only older by three years, Stavros treated him as if Dmitri was still the sixteen-year-old thug that their godfather Giannis had brought to his estate.

“Leave as soon as you can,” he told the woman without meeting her gaze.

As soon as he stepped on the upper deck, Leah pulled away from Stavros and gave him a loose hug. “It’s good to see you, Dmitri.”

The familiar warmth of her slender body chased a sudden shiver through him, as shocking as if a cavern of emotion had opened up amongst the emptiness. Something must have flickered in his face because Stavros studied him closely.

Ever since Stavros had accepted that he was in love with Leah, after years of scorning Dmitri for what he called his reckless, hedonistic lifestyle, Stavros knew how empty Dmitri felt inside.

“I liked you better before,” he said roughly, warning Stavros away.

Leah looked between them, frowning. “What?”

“Nothing,” Stavros delivered in a flat tone. The knot of his gut relented a little and Dmitri breathed easy, slipping into the mode of that reckless playboy that was bone-deep now.

He pulled a chair for Leah and signaled to his staff to serve lunch. Pulling on a practiced smile, he looked at Leah. “So what has prompted you two to emerge from your love nest a week before the wedding?”

Leah sighed. “I would like for you to give me away at the wedding. Giannis is not here and you mean a lot to me, Dmitri.”

“How many more times do I have to give you away?” he teased while intensely glad that she had asked him.

Her gaze twinkling, Leah grabbed Stavros’s hand and laced her fingers through his. “Just this one more time.”

After years of shouldering duty and knowing nothing but rules, Stavros had finally found a measure of happiness with Leah.

Holding Stavros’s gaze, because he would die rather than betray anything else that he might be feeling to his friend, Dmitri said, “It will be my pleasure, Leah.”

The sharp chime of his cell phone drew his attention. Frowning at the strange number, he clicked it.

I need help, Dmitri. Call Noah and find out. Do this for Andrew.

A cold nail raking over his spine, Dmitri stared at the message.

Images and sensations—his father’s drunken rages, his mother’s tired face, his own powerlessness, stinking alleys filled with Dumpsters, fistfights and broken noses, sobbing when Andrew held him hard, and a girl with huge, dark eyes in her oval face...

Jasmine...

Christos, the message is from Jasmine.

His gut clenched so hard that he pushed at the table and stood with a growl, a violence of emotion he hadn’t known in years holding him in its feral grip.

Noah... Noah King... The man who ruled over the lowlifes of London like a king ran his empire... Lending and extortion, bars and nightclubs, pimps and prostitution, there was no pie that Noah didn’t have a finger in.

And Jasmine was caught in it.

A soft hand on his arm brought him back from the pounding fury... He turned to see Leah staring at him with such shock that his breath burst into him in a wild rush.

On his other side stood Stavros, his gaze filled with concern. “Dmitri, who was that text from?”

“Jasmine.” Even saying her name sent a pulse of something through Dmitri. As if he was opening a door he had closed on the worst night of his life. As if he was suddenly a spiraling vortex of emotion instead of empty inside.

“Jasmine, as in Andrew’s sister?” Stavros’s understanding was instant.

“Yes, she is in trouble,” he replied, running his hand through his hair.

His muscles pumped with the need for action; he wanted to smash something, he...

“Dmitri, let’s discuss what needs to be done,” Stavros interjected calmly, as if aware of how raw he felt. Of course, his friend knew.

He opened the message and read it again. He had thought Jasmine better off without his interest and instead, she had been right there in that veritable hell all these years.

How? How was Jasmine in trouble with Noah King? What had Andrew done?

Instructing Stavros to wait, he made a series of calls, pulling every contact he had made during his life on the streets of London.

In twenty minutes, he had the gist of the situation, and it sent his sanity reeling.

Noah King had set Jasmine’s virginity up for an auction and she was texting for help.

If he hadn’t spent the first fifteen years of his life in that pit, he wouldn’t have believed it. The thing that burned him, though, was that she didn’t ask for help. Not even now.

Instead, she’d reminded him that he owed Andrew for the countless times he had saved Dmitri from his alcoholic father’s rages and then from any number of fistfights that could have killed him.

Did she think he wouldn’t come unless it was to pay off a debt?

Shoving away the infernal questions, he turned to Stavros. “I...need as much cash as we can drum up instantly, upward of a hundred thousand pounds at least.”

Stavros didn’t even hesitate before he called their accountant. “Anything else?” he asked after he had finished.

“You’re the only one I trust. If this goes sideways, I want you to...take care of Jasmine.”

Stavros didn’t even try to stop him, only nodded. He had taught Dmitri what it meant to do his duty.

Maybe this was his chance to start afresh. Maybe he would have his own freedom from the guilt and emptiness that had plagued him for more than a decade once he’d set Jasmine free.

* * *

Jasmine was startled awake from a fitful sleep by the soft creaking of the door. Adrenaline deluged her and she choked down on the scream building in her chest. Slowly, she reached for the knife and sat up toward the edge of the bed. She wasn’t going to leave her safety to chance.

Thankfully, the bed was in the darkest part of the room.

Noah, for all the ruthless chill in his eyes, wouldn’t lay a finger on her. But John, his younger brother... She had seen that lust in his eyes every time she had run into him at the club.

She would have only one chance at striking out and she intended to take it without fail. She didn’t wonder if there was a chance to escape or if Noah would rip into her for attacking his brother.

All she cared in that moment was that no one pinned her on that bed, that no one touched her.

Footsteps that were as light as her own treaded the cheap linoleum floor and she waited, crouching.

The moment the faint shadow moved, she attacked soundlessly. Her knife sliced through the air and scratched at something before she was plucked off the bed as if she was a feather.

She lashed out with her fists and legs, her screams choked by a rough hand that found her mouth effortlessly.

Her struggle lasted all of two seconds. She was grabbed and hauled against a hard body, knocking the breath out of her while a viselike arm clamped around her middle.

“Stop struggling or I will walk out and not look back.”

Mindless with fear, Jasmine dug her teeth into the hard palm, squeezing and pushing against the steel cage that clamped her.

The hold against her waist tightened, long fingers pressing into her belly and almost grazing the underside of her breasts.

But John’s body wasn’t honed to steel like the one holding her was, the thought pulsed through the fear. John was fleshy, round. John was... The body that held her tight was all hard muscles and sharp angles, the scent that filled her nostrils not of sweat and other body fluids but clean with a touch of water to it.

Like the ocean breeze. And only one man she knew had that intoxicating scent that had muddled her senses the last time, too.

She had been drowning in grief at Andrew’s funeral, and the sight of him, all stunning and sophisticated and so different, that crisp scent of him as he had neared her had sent her on a tailspin.

“Dmitri?” she whispered, every hope, every breath hinged in that name, her pulse fluttering so fast that it whooshed in her ears.

The tightness of his hold relented, a sudden shift in the hardness that encased her. His breath landed on the rim of her ear, tickling her. “At your service, Jasmine.”

Relief came at her in shuddering waves, her lungs expanding, her throat thick with pent-up fear.

Long fingers moved up and down her arms, stroking her. “Breathe, pethi mou.”

A streak of longing rent through her at the endearment, tearing at the hardened chunk of self-imposed loneliness that was her core. God, she hadn’t been held like that in forever.

“You came,” she whispered, feeling light-headed and shivery.

“Your faith in me will bloat my ego.” Silky smooth and dripping with sarcasm, his words were a whiplash against her fading willpower.

Anchoring her fingers on his forearms, she forced her spine to straighten. “From everything I hear about you,” she said, her relief fading with a welcome burn of anger and grief she had nursed for the past few years, “your ego, among other things, is apparently already big enough.”

Waves of his laughter enveloped her. His mouth opened in a smile against her jaw, sending a burst of such shocking heat through her nerves. She didn’t dare turn and glance at him, for fear of combusting alive on the spot.

Why was she reacting like this to him? Was it shock?

“John’s lying outside—”

She tried to jerk away from him. “God, you killed him?”

Another lethal smile flashed at her. “I promised my godfather I wouldn’t waste the life he gave me.”

“Nice to know you keep some of your promises.”

“And then there is Stavros,” he continued smoothly, ignoring her ungrateful little remark, “whose wedding is in a week, and he would not appreciate being dragged into my mess.” He sighed. “So tempted as I was, I didn’t kill him. I don’t even use my fists anymore except to hit Stavros,” he added. “And believe me, if that isn’t exercising self-control, I don’t know what is.”

Jasmine had no idea if he was serious or joking. The fact that he had answered her request for help, even though it was what she had fervently prayed for, hit her hard now.

Was it because she hadn’t expected the infamous playboy to come himself? Because she had relentlessly, and a little obsessively, hoped that the soft lifestyle had softened him?

Had somehow made him less?

Instead, the body that encased her felt as if it was made of steel. Realizing that she was leaning into him, she threw her elbow out.

His breath hissed out of him. “Now that we have finished our introductions, are you ready to leave this dump?”

“Dmitri...why did you attack John? Why’re you here in the middle of the night?”

Darkness shadowed his face, the fluorescent light caressing his face here and there. The light gray of his eyes was the only thing she could see. And in one glimpse, they burned with such ferocity that Jasmine dropped her gaze. “I hit him because I remembered how much of a bully John was and because he was sniffing around outside your door. And I’m here at midnight because I don’t trust Noah not to up the ante by morning—”

One question burned on her lips. “Did you...pay off the debt, Dmitri?”

“I didn’t just pay off the debt, Jasmine. I won the—” he slipped into Greek and Jasmine had no interest in learning what the pithy word was “—auction. Now stop acting the damsel in distress and move, thee mou.”

The endearment, echoing with mockery, lanced at her. “I’m not a damsel, neither am I naive enough to assume that you’re a white knight.”

The second her words left her, she wanted to snatch them back.

His teeth gleamed in the dark. “It heartens me to know that you know the score. I’m no white knight, neither will I risk loss of limb to save your hide.”

“No?”

“No. But you already know that. What did you call me at Andrew’s funeral—a self-serving bastard who doesn’t know the meaning of honor or loyalty? Throwing some money at Noah to buy you is one thing. But my generosity doesn’t stretch far enough to risk myself. So how about we postpone our chat?”

The dark of dawn cloaked them as they exited into the street. A gasp left her as she saw the sleek Bugatti motorcycle tucked neatly out of sight.

So what the dirty rags reported about his lifestyle was true. Bugatti bikes, and a yacht and countless women—Dmitri Karegas finally had everything he had ever wanted.

And he hadn’t lifted even a finger to help Andrew.

I have asked Dmitri for help and he cut me off, Jas. He’s not the boy we knew once. Andrew’s words resonated in her head, building a fire of hatred in her gut. But he had helped her today, the sensible part of her piped up.

“You’re staring at it as if it were a viper that would strike you.”

Feeling the intensity of his perusal, she shook her head.

It didn’t matter what Dmitri had become. It couldn’t matter to her.

He was an old friend who happened to have enough money to bail her out of a sticky situation. She would pay him back, even if it meant she would have to go hungry half the time, and they would be through with each other and that would be that.

“Jasmine?” Dmitri probed softly.

Cold October wind pressed against the exposed skin at her neck, sinking and seeping into her flesh. The worn-out sweatshirt she had pulled on last night offered meager protection. Her muscles shivered at the biting cold.

He chucked off his leather jacket. And held it out to her.

Her hands wrapped around herself to ward off the cold, she stared back at him.

“I don’t need it...” Her teeth chattered right in the middle of her sentence. Bloody traitorous body! “I’m fine,” she finished lamely.

He said nothing, his hand still stretched out toward her.

The silence between them stretched, sharply contrasted by the growing traffic around them. He pushed the helmet down onto his head. Though his face was hidden by the visor, Jasmine could feel the thread of his fury beneath it.

His very stillness in the wake of it was disconcerting and she marveled at his control.

Why? Why was he so angry with her? Why couldn’t he take the damn helmet off so that she could properly look at him, so that she could at least guess his thoughts?

She must still be under shock after the past few days because somehow the latter mattered more to her than his anger.

She wanted to see those solemn gray eyes; she wanted to see that broken blade of his nose, the tender smile that had always curved his mouth just for her. The strength of how fiercely she wanted to feel those arms around her once again... It was insanity.

More than anything, she wanted to see how much he’d changed from the sixteen-year-old who had left with his wealthy godfather.

From as far back as she could remember, Dmitri had been rough, almost violent, got into every fight he could manage. Only Andrew had been able to calm him, reach him at a level that no one could.

His mother’s death did that to him was all her brother would say when she probed. She remembered how fiercely Dmitri had fought against leaving with his godfather. It had taken Andrew countless hours to convince him.

But once he’d left, Dmitri hadn’t looked back. Not once.

He had easily forsaken Andrew and all the promises he’d made, had become the überwealthy playboy who cared nothing for those he had left behind.

And then he’d started appearing in the gossip columns, his wild parties, expensive toys and the countless women he dated—dated being a euphemism—making him infamous. One time, he had even come close to marrying a Russian supermodel.

In short, his life now was spheres away from hers.

“Before you read something into this—” she sensed his sardonic smile rather than seeing it “—it’s like putting a tarp on my Ferrari or a fresh coat of paint on my yacht, Jasmine. It’s about protecting my possessions.”

A gasp escaped her at how effortlessly cruel he was. “I still don’t want it.”

“Fine, freeze to your death, then.”

He pushed the helmet over her head. With precise movements, he tugged the ends of the strap together tight around her chin. Jasmine jerked at the touch of his long fingers against her jaw and cheeks, a searing heat stroking her skin. The click of the strap reverberated in tune with the thud of her heart.

“I don’t need—”

“I’m very possessive of all my toys.”

She slapped his hand away from her chin, her rising temper drowning out the confusion. With movements as measured as she could make them, she got on the bike.

“I’m not a bloody toy that you acquired. You’re just as bad as the lot of them.”

Her words got cut off as the bike started with a sleek purr, pulled off like a cannon and the momentum almost threw her off the backseat.

The very real risk of flying off the bike claiming her, Jasmine held on to his shoulders, taking care to not touch him more than necessary.

A distinct sense of unease settled between her shoulder blades. What had she risked by trusting a man who had no loyalty, who thought his roots were nothing but a dirty stain that had to be removed?

CHAPTER TWO

THROUGH LITTERED STREETS and narrow alleys, Dmitri drove on and on, feeling as if the very devil was on his heels.

Usually, he felt as if he was the king of the world as the sleek machine responded to his every request, purred into a beauty of motion. Usually, he found escape from the emptiness in his gut when he drove his bike or when he took his yacht out onto the ocean.

With the wind whipping at him and the world going motionless around him, the pure throttling power of it had always calmed him.

He knew nothing of that calm now. A cascade of emotions and feelings deluged him, and it was as if he was still trying to breathe, trying to stay afloat.

It was going back to that neighborhood, he decided with a choked-back growl.

His life had been a veritable hell all those years ago and not for the reason that Stavros and Giannis assumed. Being there, he thought, would surely send him spiraling into that angry, violent teenager Giannis had suddenly found on his hands.

And it had.

That same anger and fear and shame had instantly corralled him the moment he had seen the familiarly grungy warehouse, smelled the nearby leather factory. The suffocating stench of his failure clung to his pores.

Like an invisible rope had loosened the tether he kept on the memories he locked away, like his skin could flinch and smart again from scars that had healed on the surface long ago.

He hadn’t felt this out of control since...since the night his mother had died. The road curved dangerously ahead and he throttled the gear, curving into it.

A tentative hand pressed into his shoulder, his name a soft whisper on the periphery of his roiling emotions. Jasmine’s slender body slammed into him from behind, her arms vining around his midriff like clinging ropes. Her mouth was near his ear and her terrified voice broke through the black shroud of past.

“Dmitri, please...slow down.”

Her soft entreaty finally punctured through him and he slowed.

Her hands wound around his waist snugly. She was plastered to his back from cheek to chest, and a sigh left her mouth. He clutched her hand at his waist and she pressed back silently. He didn’t know who sought comfort from whom, but there was something about her embrace that calmed the turmoil inside him.

That life was over, he reminded himself. Andrew was far beyond his help. His mother was far beyond his help.

He had nothing to recommend about himself to a woman, but he had oodles of money. And with it, he would ensure Jasmine never went back to that world, would set her up for the rest of her life and walk away.

* * *

They stopped finally after an hour, dawn streaking the sky a faint pink. Her muscles cramping at sitting so still and erect on the bike, Jasmine got off the bike shakily, her legs barely holding her up.

From a dingy, neon-lit back alley to the sophisticated elegance of The Chatsfield, London, it was as if she had fallen through a tear in the fabric of the city.

Chauffeured luxury vehicles rounded the courtyard even at this time, designer-clad men and women making their way to the entrance.

Her neck craned back, she took in the majestic building and then looked down at herself. Dressed in washed-out jeans and a thin, baggy sweater, she felt like a mangy dog that the liveried bellboy would shoo away any second.

With a masculine elegance, Dmitri got off the bike and handed the keys to an eagerly waiting, uniformed valet. He came to stand next to her and instantly, a storm of butterflies unleashed in her belly.

Heat crept up her chest as she remembered the restrained power in his leanly coiled body.

After years of dreaming about getting out of that life, the reality of it happening had hit her hard. Driven by a growing sense of freedom and fear at how fast he had been going, she had wrapped herself around him. She had only sought comfort in a distressing moment, and yet now it felt shameless and weak, smacking of a familiarity that she didn’t want him to think she presumed.

He hadn’t pushed her off the bike, so that had to count for something.

The frigid air that met her nostrils was coated with the scent of him, and somehow became the familiar anchor in a sea of strangeness.

“You should have told me where we were going,” she said, aware of the belligerence in her tone and not able to stop it.

She hated feeling as if she didn’t belong. And the sad truth of her life was that she belonged in that dingy alley rather than here. She belonged more in that club that catered to the most basic sins than in this posh elegance, with men like Noah and John rather than the man Dmitri had become.

He took her elbow and pulled her forward. “You don’t sound happy to be out of there.”

Keeping her gaze ahead, which was sure going to break her neck, she quipped, “More like not happy to be out here. I don’t want to go in there, Dmitri. I just need a few more minutes of your—”

“We’re going to need a lot more than a few minutes to sort things out, Jasmine. And if I can belong here,” he threw at her arrogantly, “then you can.”

“Sort out...what? Why?”

His long fingers dug into her flesh as if to jostle her. She pulled at his grip with her fingers but he didn’t relent. “You will not look at me. Why?”

She angled her head and caught a quick glimpse just to defy him.

Piercing gray eyes held hers in an open challenge and she turned away.

The doorman held out the door for them, a familiar smile on his face. Dmitri greeted him by name and Jasmine followed slowly. He had been so close all these years. And she had never known.

“You stay here regularly?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realize you visited London anymore.”

“And you would know because you have kept in touch?” An impression of contained energy and a barely civil smile hit her. “Stavros prefers to look after the Athens side of the business.”

Entering the brilliantly lit lobby from the dark, hushed luxury of the outside was like stepping into a different world. Jasmine blinked and stared around, losing her bearings for a few minutes.

Black-and-white art deco flooring complemented soft beige walls while a stunning, magnificent chandelier took center stage in the vast space. Bold lines and sweeping curves made the hotel look timelessly elegant.

And Dmitri stood in the center of it all.

Black jeans and black leather jacket made him look effortlessly breathtaking, the long, lean lines of his body drawing looks from more than one woman even in the predawn hours.

He might have started where she did, but there was an aura of casual power and panache that made Dmitri not just blend, but stand out amidst the extravagant grandeur of the hotel.

At five-ten, she matched his six-three stride easily. She only wished she could say the same of her clothes and more important, her insides. The vast foyer felt as if it would take forever to cross and all she wanted to do was to fade away from the brilliant lights.

It was not that she thought herself plain. On the contrary, she had heard all her life, and felt nauseous, that she was exotic, lush, possessed of perfect voluptuousness for her vocation. She was stared at six nights of the week and earned her living making love to a pole, but it was how she felt next to the casual elegance of the man next to her that bothered her.

The shame that always clung to her, as if it was etched into her very skin, was amplified when she stood next to him. Just as it stung her that he had seen her at such a weak moment.

As if suddenly he was a measure of her looks, her world, her very life.

She flinched when he pulled her away from the reception area toward the bank of elevators. He held her loosely and yet a thread of his emotions, not so contained, brimmed within him.

Beneath that polite smile, she had a feeling he was ragingly furious. And she was afraid of finding out why.

“The hotel is fit for a king,” she said, trying to keep the utter awe she felt out of her words.

“I have a feeling that you’re the opposite of impressed.”

The doors of the lift closed with a soft ping, trapping them inside. Her heart beat like the thundering hooves of a horse when he hit the stop button.

“You have to look at me now, Jasmine” came his soft command.

“You’re making a big deal out of...”

“Are you afraid of me, thee mou?”

Shaking her head, she looked up.

The four walls of the lift were glittering mirrors that showed her a stunningly gorgeous face.

Her femininity, beaten down and stuffed into a bag, roared a primal scream of joy at the sight of the magnificent man in front of her. Every inch of her—from her skin to her breasts, from her cells to her core—stood to attention.

His legs crossed at the ankles, his hands gripping the wall behind him, he filled the space with his masculinity. Something else burst into life in that enclosed space, swelling and arching, until Jasmine felt as though there was a hum inside her every nerve.

Even at sixteen, he had had arresting features, but now...the power he exuded and his command of the world filled the planes and angles of his face, making him a lethal combination of stunning looks and effortless masculinity.

Long, curly lashes kissed cheekbones that were honed so sharp that it was like looking at the work of a master sculptor. Deep-set gray eyes studied her just as hungrily as she studied him. As if he knew her volatile reaction to his nearness.

Of course he knew, Jasmine scolded herself. There couldn’t be a man alive who looked like Dmitri and didn’t know it, didn’t wield it to his advantage. And the fact that she, too, with all the rules she had set in place to be able to face herself in the mirror, was staring at him with googly eyes, measuring herself against him... That woke up Jasmine like nothing else could.

Now she understood the sense of danger that had skittered through her very blood when he had held her from behind so intimately.

The danger to her didn’t come from him. The danger to her came from her reaction to him.

CHAPTER THREE

DECIDING THAT HE would protect her at any cost was one thing, Dmitri thought as Jasmine devoured him with those wide eyes.

The actual logistics of what he would do with this wild creature were quite another. With lush breasts and narrow hips that swayed with every step she took, from the way she tucked that tumbling jet-black hair behind her ear to the pouty mouth that came from no injection, Jasmine was not simply beautiful, but stunningly sexy.

Was that the reason for that ridiculous auction? Had some man coveted her because of those Arab genes that she had inherited from an absentee father, and Noah had turned it to his advantage? What horrific scheme had she caught herself in?

Round jet-black eyes, dark arched eyebrows that suited perfectly those big eyes, a sharp, bladelike nose and a pointed chin.

There was not an ounce of extra flesh on her face, giving her a lean, sharp look. As if every bone in that face had been sculpted by years of hunger and sleepless nights. Her hair, jet-black and thickly curling, was pulled back tightly, exaggerating the feral sharpness of her features. One curl dangled alongside a sharply defined jawline.

There was an alert look in her eyes even now, just as there had been in that warehouse. The straight, tense line of her shoulders, her sharp breaths... He realized how alien this was to her.

How alien he was to her...

When he had seen her five years ago, she had barely turned eighteen, and had looked nothing like this...except for that wary distrust.

It had been there then, too. But where she had barely glanced at him then, her bold gaze drank him in today.

He had never experienced such a thorough, artless appraisal. Women came on to him all the time and he enjoyed it, but Jasmine’s searing gaze was more than basic female curiosity.

It was as though she was looking for something, or someone. And instead of that shallow echo he was so used to, he felt something inside him vibrate in response to her look.

As if a part of him that had lain dormant and unfeeling for so long suddenly uncoiled itself at the sight of her. Dangerously tempting and thoroughly unwise... He wondered how to distance himself from it.

Because as hungry as he’d been to feel something like that, he had nothing to give her.

“No one would know you were from the streets,” she said with a brittleness that he wouldn’t have associated with her.

“And why do you sound as if that’s the worst thing in the world, Jasmine?” He would not call her Jas even though it fluttered on his tongue. Which was strange, because how could a woman’s name have so much power over him? “It’s a pit of desperation and addiction and violence. Why should I ever want to look as if I belonged there once? Why should anyone who had a chance to get out of there still cling to it?” Steel resonated in his voice at the end there but he couldn’t help it.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and he had a feeling she was trying to calm herself down. She failed. When she looked at him, she fairly bristled with aggressiveness. “Of course not. And God forbid anything stand in the way of you leaving the past behind, Dmitri, anything even remotely dirty and poor taint your extravagant lifestyle now.”

He pushed off the wall, furious energy burning through his veins. Instantly, she flattened herself against the wall. And the startled look in her eyes more than anything calmed him down.

Let her think what she wants, he told himself.

He had never cared what the world thought of him. Why would he care about what Jasmine said? But he couldn’t allow her to taunt him like that; he couldn’t allow her to think even for a second that she knew him.

He turned all the energy in him into cutting scorn, delivering it in a silky-smooth tone. “Before you castigate me for wanting out of that life, let’s not forget how this night started, thee mou. Let’s not forget whose money and power saved whose ass in this story, ne?

“Maybe you believe your life is not valuable enough to get out of there, but I will not feel guilty for thinking mine is. Nor will I feel guilty about enjoying the fruits of my hard labor. Giannis might have—”

“Pulled you out of the hellhole that was our life, but I know that it was you and your friend...”

“Stavros Sporades,” he added.

“That it was you two that put his textile company on the global map, especially when everything else is folding in this economy,” she added, as if she was offering him recompense for angering him. “I have followed your—” he had a feeling she wouldn’t say the actual word that she wanted to “—success the past few years.”

And suddenly, it was as though a hard fist jammed into his throat. She had known he was rich, then. She had known that he could have helped. Even as she refused to admit it, she had known, all along, that he would come if she asked.

And yet, she had waited so long... Which night would have made it too long?

Fury, reminding him of broken bones and painful fists, flew hot through him. “Have you? Gratifying to know that I held your interest for so many years, pethi mou. And a little shocking that you have somehow lost the good sense I thought you possessed.”

The lift opened just then and he walked out without checking to see if she followed.

* * *

By the time she walked past the dramatic reception hall into the sitting lounge of the suite, Jasmine felt numb to the extravagance of her surroundings.

It was a toss-up between the electricity that burned between Dmitri and her and the reach of his wealth and sphere.

A finely carved wood and marble fireplace dominated the lounge, which was decorated with black leather furniture.

Her running shoes sank into the thick carpet with a soft hiss.

Jasmine had barely caught her breath when a woman walked into the lounge. Her hair was mussed around her fragile, sleep-ruffled face, her long legs bared in shorts.

“Dmitri?” she whispered, her shocked glance taking in the both of them. “You took so long...”

“Leah? What are you doing here?” The concern in Dmitri’s voice was as unmistakable as the lacerating sarcasm when he addressed Jasmine.

Suddenly, being a spectator to a romantic reunion between Dmitri and his latest girlfriend was the last thing Jasmine wanted to be.

The woman crossed the last few steps, genuine worry etched on her brow. Dmitri enfolded her so gently that it sent a pang through Jasmine. “When you were taking so long, he dropped me off here. He’s been calling every fifteen minutes...” Her gasp pierced through Jasmine.

“Dmitri, you’re bleeding.” With that, Leah clicked her cell phone on and left the room.

The sharp hiss of his exhale, the way he had held himself so rigidly on the bike... Her gut heaving, Jasmine turned him around roughly and lifted his leather jacket.

A patch of red stained the tear on his pristine white shirt around his abdomen, a stark contrast against the rest of it.

Jasmine stared at the dried blood and the way the shirt clung to his skin. Bile filled her throat as the metallic scent washed over her. Shivers set forth from the base of her spine. As if her attacking Dmitri when he had come to save her was the last straw...

Pressing her hand to her forehead, she tried to breathe past the rawness in her throat. “I could have killed you... I thought John would sneak in in the middle of the night and I was just being cautious... I never...”

“I did not ask why you attacked me,” he said in that monotone voice again. He sounded angrier at her being upset than that she had wounded him. “Theos, I don’t care that you tried to protect yourself. I care that you have led a life that requires that you sleep with a knife under your pillow.”

She flinched at the disgust in his words.

For as long as she had known, men had only looked at her cheaply, with lust glimmering in their eyes. And once she had started working her current job four years ago, it had only gotten worse, shame and self-disgust her only companions.

So why the hell did she care what Dmitri thought of her?

His hand under her chin, he lifted it up. She clutched her eyes closed to lock away the tears. The depth of her reaction to him, his words scared her.

“Look at me, Jasmine.” Something rumbled in that soft command. She would have called it desperation if she thought she could hold together one sane thought at the moment.

His hands moved up and down her arms as if he was calming down a spooked animal. “You’re shaking again. Theos, stop being afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered, opening her eyes. Dark stubble surrounded that carved mouth. “I’m so sorry, Dmitri...”

He shook his head. “You grazed me really good with the serrated edge but it’s only a flesh wound.”

She ran a shaking finger over the mended bridge of his shattered nose, a tendril of desperate emotion engulfing her.

“I don’t remember ever being so terrified as that night when John punched you,” she said, remembering the horrific night when John had broken Dmitri’s nose. “I thought you would kill him.”

A haunting memory flashed through those deceptively calm eyes. “If not for Andrew, I would have.” A smile cut his mouth then, transforming his face again. It was like seeing someone intensely familiar slip on a mask and become a stranger. “For a woman who defends that filthy world, you’re acting strange at the sight of a little blood.”

Her finger moved down his nose, hovered over his mouth, her heart thundering in her chest.

“Jas...” Her name was a raw warning on his lips.

An immense stillness seemed to come over him, the faintest of shudders moving his narrow seamed mouth. His fingers clasped her wrist tight, as if he was truly afraid of her touching his mouth. “You’re still in shock.”

Was he convincing her or himself? she wondered. She had seen her mum waste herself away in a bottle of rum, had seen Andrew breathe his last... Grief and fear for her life had all been consuming her since Noah’s men had arrived at her doorstep three days ago, and yet it was this moment that threatened to shove her heart out of her chest...

This craven yearning to touch him, to discover if there was anything left of the boy who had treated her as if she was the most precious thing he had ever held... It was madness.

Because he had left that boy behind a long time ago when he had walked out with his godfather. Leaving Andrew and her behind.

Far, far behind.

“Dmitri?” a man’s deep voice called.

It jolted her out of her feverlike delirium and Jasmine tried to collect her breath.

“It might be a flesh wound, but you should still have it sterilized and cleaned up,” the man continued. “It doesn’t look as though Jasmine uses that knife for chopping vegetables.”

She looked up to find Dmitri looking at her with a sardonic gleam in his eyes, his brows raised in question.

He held her wrist aloft and returned it to her side. Then he gently nudged her back. To his friend, he added, “Hand me the first-aid kit, Stavros.”

Enough, Jas!

Was she so desperate for a connection from their awful past, so lonely that even Dmitri’s begrudging help would do?

She was damned, however, if she let his posh friends walk all over her, or insult her dirty roots.

Stavros, whose face was a study in austerity and cold arrogance, gazed at her, his expression inscrutable.

“I assure you, Mr. Sporades, my knife is not as filthy as you imagine.”

A smile touched the man’s mouth but his expression didn’t lose the severity. “You mistake me, Jasmine,” he said, assuming a familiarity that shocked her. “I’m in awe of how cunningly you found a way out of your predicament. Although I—”

“He wishes, rightly—” Dmitri cut in, frost turning his eyes into a thundering gray “—that you had not put yourself in such a dangerous situation in the first place.”

“Put myself in that situation? You talk as if this was a game to me. You think I...I wanted to sell myself like that?”

Such a savage growl erupted from Dmitri that it was like seeing a cat transform into a tiger, vicious claws unsheathed. “You don’t want to know how I dare ask that question, yineka mou, not in front of company. That is a discussion you and I will have later, when I’m not in danger of strangling you for the company you keep.”

The silence that followed the softly spoken threat was deafening, the shock on his friends’ faces sending a ripple down Jasmine’s spine.

Jasmine felt as if she had been slapped, as if her shame was written all over her face. There was none of that easy humor, that uncaring attitude that he had worn in the past couple of hours. “I’ve had enough of you and your insulting—”

She had barely turned around when his broad frame, bursting with contained violence, blocked her. “Do not test my patience, Jasmine.”

Something in the glint of his eye warned Jasmine to shut up.

“How bad is that cut?” Stavros intervened as if the room wasn’t crackling with furious energy.

“I can attend to it myself.” Dmitri turned and grinned, a wicked glint in his eyes. The transformation from brooding violence to charming rogue was so swift that Jasmine did a double take. “Or Leah can attend to me.”

Jasmine had never seen him smile like that.

Innocence had never been a luxury they had been afforded, and for as long back as she could remember of her childhood, Dmitri had been in it. And not this smiling, outrageous playboy who looked as though nothing touched him...

The expression in his eyes was dazzling, wicked and not...completely real. He knew what his outrageous remark would do and he had used it to deflect attention from him and his wound.

That smile was a practiced facade, she thought with a frown.

Leah shook her head. “Dmitri, stop taunting him. And, Stavros, really, enough with the caveman—”

“Tell your husband that I’m not sixteen anymore and he doesn’t need to patch me up.” This was Dmitri again, winking wickedly at Leah. “I had hoped you would have cured him of all this duty nonsense in your bed, pethi mou.”

A curse flew from the deceptively calm Stavros.

“You’re his wife?” Jasmine said to the blushing Leah, realizing she had spoken out loud when Dmitri looked at her.

“Who did you think she was?”

Challenge. Dare. Belligerence. All of it wrapped in a smooth tone.

With three sets of eyes resting on her, Jasmine flushed but refused to let him embarrass her. She poured defiance into her tone. “Your current squeeze.

“I’m sorry.” She said this to Leah, who was shaking her head at both men.

“Don’t be.” Leah smiled. “Dmitri is being his usual beastly self. I’m Leah Sporades. Giannis, their godfather, was my grandfather.”

Jasmine stood awkwardly as Stavros and Leah argued with Dmitri with an obvious familiarity while he threw outrageous remarks at them.

I knew him before you did.

The errant thought dropped into her head and she sent a startled glance toward Dmitri.

His gaze stayed on her, intense and brooding, as if he would like nothing but to skin her alive with his words. Seconds piled on as that same awareness locked them in their own little world. What would happen when his friends left?

Running a hand over her forehead, she looked away. The faster she got out of here the better.

She grabbed the kit from the unsuspecting Stavros and turned to Dmitri. “Stop with the macho posturing and sit down. The cut is on the far left side and you’re left-handed.”

His grin vanishing, Dmitri looked at her as if she had suddenly sprouted two heads.

She sighed. That mutinous, wary expression in his eyes... That she remembered.

“Strip, Dmitri.”

“Usually I’m filled with uncontainable anticipation at that command from a woman,” he said with an exaggerated leer, “but give back the kit to Stavros, Jasmine.”

Unbuttoning his shirt, Dmitri pulled it off his wound. Only a jerk of his mouth betrayed his pain. Ridges of leanly sculpted muscles defined his broad chest, only a smattering of dark hair dotting the olive-toned skin.

Her cheeks instantly tightened, her mouth dry as Jasmine tried to not stare. She took a step toward him, determined to act normal. “I’ll make it fast.”

Dmitri glared at her. “I’d rather you not touch me at all.”

“Why not? I’ve sewed up so many of Andrew’s wounds growing up that I—”

“Like Stavros pointed out so well, we don’t know where you and your hands have been. And yes, you are supertough to have made it all on your own for so many years... But we both know that you are a little fragile right now, ne? You were crawling all over me on the bike and—”

“Because you were driving like a maniac,” she yelled, her face heating up.

“—and a minute ago, you got upset at the sight of the small gash. I’d rather you not look at me with those sad, puppy eyes while you tend to me as if this was some grand reunion that we both have been breathlessly waiting for for years. My generosity toward you is fast disappearing and the cut burns like hell.”

The kit fell from her fingers, thudding like a drum in the silence.

There were so many offensive things in there that for a second, she couldn’t even sift through them all. Only stood weightless while the cruelty in his words carved through her.

Then the slow, merciful burn of humiliation spread across her throat and cheeks, merciful because anything was better than that hollow ache, her ribs squeezing her lungs tighter and tighter.

His words should not have touched her. He was nothing to her. She had hated him for years on principle. And yet his words knocked the breath out of her.

Was it because she had never been so literally saved from a situation before? Because, for most of her life, she had only depended on herself, and seeing a man like Dmitri come to her aid was warping her sense of reality?

Or was she just like her mum after all? One kind word from a man and she was ready to fall over herself and into his arms?

She struggled to hold his gaze but she did, pouring all the hatred, for him and for herself, into that look.

“You’re right. I’m not myself...” She drew in a shuddering breath. “And you... You’re not...”

His face was a tight mask over his angular features, his eyes suddenly hauntingly vulnerable. “Do not assume to know me, Jasmine.”

She shook her head, feeling immensely weary. “No, I don’t, do I? Have your cut looked at or let it fester and rot you, for all I care. I need a little more of your precious time and then I want out of here.”

Holding her shoulders rigidly, she turned.

The sympathy in Leah’s eyes was much too real, and Jasmine steeled herself against it. Stumbling through the lounge, she ducked into the first room and closed the door behind her and then walked into the en-suite bathroom.

A sea of white marble greeted her. With a tub long and wide enough for her to swim in, with gleaming gold taps, cold porcelain tiles and thick, fluffy towels, it was her version of paradise.

Tempted as she was to soak in the bath, she stripped and headed for the shower, needing to wash off the fear and grime of the past two days. If only she could so easily wash off the stink of her life...

The moment the water hit her, something in her unraveled. With a deep breath, Jasmine let the tears that had been threatening all night, out.

Only once, Jas, she warned herself.

She would cry just this once, without caring what it meant. She would let herself be weak just this one time. And then she would walk out and not look back.

She had been right in rejecting his offer of money when Andrew had died.

With the hatred of a thousand suns, she promised herself she would never set eyes on Dmitri Karegas again after tonight.

CHAPTER FOUR

DMITRI HISSED OUT a sharp breath as Stavros dabbed his wound with an alcohol wipe. Yet the burn of it over the open flesh was nothing compared to the burn in his gut.

The image of Jas’s face, her mouth trembling, her wide eyes stricken with hurt, would haunt him for the rest of his life. Along with a hundred other images of her.

Jas, looking at him with a toothless smile, Jas, at nine, sitting by him in companionable silence while he nursed a broken nose, Jas, her tears overflowing onto her cheeks as he said goodbye to her and Andrew...

Jas, as she glared at him with bristling hatred and fury at Andrew’s funeral five years ago...

And now this Jas, who saw through his veneer to the real him, who had melted into his arms with such vulnerability in her eyes...

Who had looked at him as if he was everything...

A furious cascade of such hunger churned in his gut that he had to grasp the handrest to anchor himself. Just the torrent of emotions that had deluged him ever since she had come at him with that knife was proof enough.

No! That look had been nothing but a result of shock.

He didn’t want her to look at him like that, as if he was her hero and knight wrapped in one.

He was no one’s hero, and definitely not hers. He shattered women’s silly romantic notions of him on a regular basis.

Yet the hurt in her eyes disturbed him far more than it should have.

Theos, where was the woman who had so thoroughly despised him that day?

Setting Jasmine’s expectations regarding him shouldn’t require this much thought and second-guessing.

“You know,” Leah’s voice cut in, “I always thought you were the kinder one between Stavros and you.” She sighed. “I’ll wait in the limo, Stavros. I don’t want to embarrass Jasmine anymore but if possible, please convince her to come with us.”

“She won’t accept anyone’s charity,” Dmitri said, before he could curb the words. Because he had tried once and she had bristled as if he had made an indecent proposition.

Leah’s displeasure swelled in the silence even after she left.

Unrolling gauze, Stavros leveled him a flat look. Dmitri refused to take the bait.

Stavros cut up a strip of medicinal gauze and covered up the wound and then neatly put on a plaster. Then he shut the plastic case and tucked it away. Uncoiling to his height, he finally met Dmitri’s gaze. “She seems...very innocent, Dmitri.”

He understood the awe in Stavros’s voice. Dmitri had been prepared for the shock of seeing Jasmine after all these years, but she was nothing like he had imagined.

From the moment he had entered that house, a tight fist had formed in his gut and it showed no signs of loosening. To find her like he did today, to imagine what would have happened if he had been late... Everything inside him ignited into a mindless fury, every lesson he had learned in controlling his temper consumed by that fear.

“Something I didn’t have when Giannis plucked me from there, you mean?” he challenged Stavros.

“Yes.”

Stavros’s unsaid question reverberated in that single word, but Dmitri was in no mood to talk about the lack of his innocence. Stavros had come to mean more to him than even his godfather but he wouldn’t go into his past even for him.

He refused to let it leave a mark on him.

“You don’t know to handle her,” Stavros said in that arrogant tone of his that drove Leah crazy.

“You’re afraid I’m going to corrupt that innocence,” Dmitri stated flatly.

Jasmine was like the key to the Pandora’s box he had left behind a long time ago. And all he wanted with the key was to throw it away and not look back.

“No,” Stavros replied, surprising him. “But it is also obvious that she—”

“She’s a debt, Stavros, and I pay them.”

A lethal smile touched his friend’s mouth. “Tell me your plans for her.”

He remained silent, drawing a complete blank.

What was he supposed to do with her now? She had no place in his life, even a minuscule one.

“We both know that you can’t just let her walk out of here. Not without ensuring she’s not going to be a danger to herself.”

“Danger she’s courted recklessly.” The words rattled out of Dmitri on a wave of anger.

Why the hell hadn’t she come to him before this? Theos, he understood addictions and the damage they caused, but for Andrew to leave her with so much debt, a debt that Dmitri had no doubt was the result of his gambling...?

Fury and powerlessness flew in his veins because Andrew wasn’t even here anymore for Dmitri to take it out on.

“So she deserves to be left to her fate?” Stavros asked with rising incredulity. “Is this how you would’ve helped if Calista had been in trouble?”

“Christos, she’s not going to...” The horror of the night when Stavros’s sister had died cut him off.

But then, none of them had known Calista had been on such a self-destructive path until it had been years too late. Pain pounded through his veins at the thought of Jasmine going down that path. Look at the situation she had found herself in. “She’s not going to calmly accept whatever I propose.”

“I know you hate responsibility of any kind, Dmitri, but this is—”

“Theos, Stavros, she does not belong with me. Not for a moment, much less for days.”

Stavros looked at him again, something emerging in his gaze. As if he could sense the panic in Dmitri’s words. As if he could see the noose tightening around Dmitri’s throat. “Then, you should have never answered her call for help.

“What about her is bothering you so much, Dmitri? I have never seen you in such a...state when it comes to a woman. You change them on a weekly basis. Why is she different?”

Dmitri pushed a hand through his hair, feeling as though his life was slipping out of his hands. How he wished he could fob her off on Stavros...

“You don’t want to be responsible for her and yet your conscience won’t let her walk away. How about you do not anger her, then?”

“Where was this infinite wisdom when it was Leah we were dealing with?” he couldn’t help pointing out.

“Learn from my lesson, then, won’t you?” Stavros growled, steel edging into his tone. As it always did when even the mention of how close he had come to losing Leah came up. “If you hurt her again, the damage she does to you might not be so minimal. Or even worse, she could just turn around and go back to that same world.”

“Her feelings are not my concern.” That was it. Jasmine could rant and rage at him all she wanted. All he cared about was that the woman was alive. If he had to shred her to pieces to do it, he would, again and again. But he wouldn’t let her return to that life.

He had failed so many people in his life, but he couldn’t fail Jasmine.

* * *

Jasmine stepped into the elegantly decorated bedroom and flopped onto the bed. The robe she had put on slid silkily against her skin but she just couldn’t get herself to wear the same jeans and sweater again. Not until she got them washed, at least.

Only silence came from the front lounge. Her heart thudding loudly, she looked up.

Dmitri prowled into the room and leaned against the wall, the movement pulling one lapel of his unbuttoned shirt higher, exposing a rope of leanly sculpted muscle. A gauze pad near his abdomen stood out white against his olive skin.

One of his brows lifted, a sardonic smile twisting his mouth.

Sinuous heat bloomed low in her belly, the sight of his naked torso a temptation like she had never imagined.

The luxurious black satin scrunched in her fingers painted a picture of her writhing beneath that leanly coiled frame, all of that simmering intensity unleashed on her, while he worshipped her with the mouth that had pierced her so much...

“Jasmine?”

His frown prompted her out of her fantasies, her skin heating up.

She was used to attention of the most extreme kind, knew lust in all its forms. And yet, when Dmitri looked at her, even innocently as he was doing now, as if he could see into her head and soul, she was extremely aware of it.

Of all the men in the world, something inside her reacted with a violent energy to Dmitri. Maybe it was because she had known him as a kid. Maybe because, for the first time in years, she was with a man and she didn’t have to worry about whether he was motivated by lust or some other inferior motive.

That was it.

Dmitri, for all his crushing words, was safe.

For years, she had wondered if the life she had adapted to to survive had somehow corrupted her ability to feel this kind of need, if her body would ever feel like it was anything but an instrument she had honed to make a living...if she would feel free enough...wondered if there was anything pure left in her thoughts except for the technicality of it...