She doesn’t recognize her husband

But her body does...

Sasha’s life changes beyond recognition after a shocking accident—her amnesia has made sure of that. She can’t even remember marrying Apollo, her devastatingly handsome Greek husband! Although she does remember their intimate, searing passion...

Then Sasha discovers the truth behind their less-than-perfect marriage and is left with more questions than ever. Why can she remember only one night with Apollo? Why does their undeniable connection trouble him so? And is their tempestuous marriage strong enough to withstand revelations from her past...?

Irish author ABBY GREEN ended a very glamorous career in film and TV—which really consisted of a lot of standing in the rain outside actors’ trailers—to pursue her love of romance. After she’d bombarded Mills & Boon with manuscripts they kindly accepted one, and an author was born. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, and loves any excuse for distraction. Visit abby-green.com or email abbygreenauthor@gmail.com.

Also by Abby Green

The Virgin’s Debt to Pay

Claiming His Wedding Night Consequence

An Innocent, A Seduction, A Secret

Awakened by the Scarred Italian

Rival Spanish Brothers miniseries

Confessions of a Pregnant Cinderella

Redeemed by His Stolen Bride

Rulers of the Desert miniseries

A Diamond for the Sheikh’s Mistress

A Christmas Bride for the King

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Greek’s Unknown Bride

Abby Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09818-2

THE GREEK’S UNKNOWN BRIDE

© 2020 Abby Green

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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This is for Orwell, my fluffy little shadow, who enriches my life and provides vital moral support when I’m banging my head off the keyboard. Even if he is on his back, paws in the air, snoring softly.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

APOLLO VASILIS STARED out of the window at the ornamental lake set in lush grounds. Athens lay under a hazy smog in the distance, and the sea was a barely perceptible line on the horizon. But he noticed none of that. His arms were folded tightly across his chest and tension wound like a vice inside his body. A tension he’d been feeling for months now. Three months, to be precise.

There was a faint rhythmic beep-beep coming from behind him and suddenly it changed. Skipped a beat, and became slightly faster. Heart rate increasing. She was waking up. Finally.

He turned around. A woman lay on a raised bed. She was as pale as the sheets underneath her. Rose-gold hair spread around her head. There was a gauze dressing on her forehead, over her right eye.

There were bandages around one arm. A scratch down her left cheek. All in all, minor cuts and bruises. A miracle, considering the car that she’d been driving was at the bottom of a narrow ravine about one hundred metres deep, a charred mass of black twisted metal.

He moved closer to the bed. Her almost blonde lashes were so long they cast faint shadows on her cheeks. Her brows were darker, finely etched. He frowned. Her face looked...thinner. The bones of her cheeks were standing out more prominently than he seemed to remember.

But then...looking at this woman in any kind of forensic detail was not something he’d done lately.

Not since he’d looked at her as if he’d never seen a woman before. Four months ago, when they’d first met. When her naked body had filled his vision and made his blood roar so loudly it had deafened him.

He could still see her body now as if the image had been burned onto his brain. The small but perfectly formed breasts. Flat belly, gently curved hips. The cluster of tight reddish curls at the apex of her legs. Slender limbs. She’d looked so delicate and yet when he’d joined his body to hers, he’d felt the innate steely strength of her and it had been the most erotic experience of his life.

To Apollo’s surprise and consternation, a heat he hadn’t felt in months flooded his veins. He rejected it utterly. This woman had deceived him in the worst way possible.

He despised her.

At that same moment that her eyelids fluttered, the door opened and the doctor and a couple of nurses entered. The female doctor looked at Apollo. ‘I need to remind you not to expect too much at first. The extent of the injury to her head can only really be ascertained once she regains consciousness.’

Apollo nodded curtly, and watched as they tended to the machines around the bed. The doctor sat down beside the woman and took her hand. ‘My dear, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes for me?’

Apollo could see movement behind the delicate eyelids. For a second he found himself holding his breath as her eyelids fluttered again. As if, for a moment, he’d forgotten, and a small part of him actually cared if his wife woke up or not.

She could hear the voice coming from far away. It was like a buzzing bee, distracting her, tugging her away from the lovely cloak of darkness surrounding her in blissful silence and peace.

A pressure, on her hand. The voice. Louder now. She couldn’t make out words, just intonation. Mmm. Mmm!

She tried to swat away the pressure but it only got stronger. A brightness was pricking at her eyes, pushing away the darkness. Her head felt so thick...fuzzy. Heavy.

And then, as if a curtain had been pulled back, very clearly she heard a sharp voice. ‘Mrs Vasilis, it’s time to wake up.’

For a second she lamented leaving the peaceful darkness behind but she knew she had no choice but to follow the voice. She understood the words but they didn’t make much sense to her... Mrs...?

She opened her eyes and light exploded onto her retinas, making her shut them tightly again. She became aware that she was lying in a bed. She could sense the flurry of activity around her. And also, disturbingly, the fact that in that split second she’d noticed a tall dark shape looming at the end of the bed.

A shape that was familiar and made her heart pound for no reason she could understand.

‘Mrs Vasilis, can you try opening your eyes again? We’ve lowered the blinds to make it easier.’

Experimentally, she cracked her eyes open again and this time it didn’t hurt so much. The face of a woman she didn’t know came into focus. There were a couple of other women, also strangers. They all had dark hair and dark eyes. There was a humming noise and rhythmic beeping of machines. White everywhere. Antiseptic smell.

A word popped into her mind: hospital.

There was movement in her peripheral vision and she looked towards the end of the bed. The tall dark shape was a man. She knew him. ‘A-A...’ Her voice cracked like rust. She tried again. ‘Apollo?’

‘That’s good.’

She barely noticed the relief evident in the doctor’s voice as she took in the man at the end of the bed. He wore a dark long-sleeved top. Round neck. Soft material. Broad shoulders and chest. Powerful. But not overly muscular. Lean.

Short dark hair. Strong masculine features. Deep-set eyes. Green eyes. She knew this, even though she couldn’t see their colour properly from here. Strong jaw. Stubble. Firm mouth. Hot, on hers. A shiver went through her. She’d been kissed by this man.

She felt her hand being pressed. The doctor’s voice. ‘You know who this man is?’

It was hard for her to tear her gaze away from him, as if she was afraid he might disappear. She nodded. ‘Yes...we just met, the other night. At a function.’ He frowned slightly, but she barely noticed as heat crept into her cheeks, remembering seeing him for the first time. How he’d stopped her in her tracks with his breath-taking beauty and charisma, wearing a tuxedo that had been moulded to his powerful body like a second skin.

He’d looked bored. People had hovered around him but at a distance as if too intimidated to get close.

And then their eyes had met and... Bam! Her heart had somersaulted in her chest and she’d never been the same since...

Slowly it was sinking in that she was in a hospital. But what was she doing here? With a man she barely knew?

But you do know him. Intimately.

She felt it in her bones, like a deep knowing. But how did she know this if she’d only just met him? She tried to latch onto the question to find the answer but it skittered out of her grasp.

Confusion clouded her brain and for the first time she had a sense that something was very wrong. A tendril of fear...or panic...coiled in her belly. She looked at the doctor. ‘What’s happening? Why am I here?’

As she said the word I, she stopped. I. Nothing. Blank. A void. The fear grew. ‘Wait... I don’t know...who I am... Who am I?’

Then something popped into her head. The doctor had called her... ‘You said Mrs Vasilis...’

The doctor looked at her with an expression that was hard to decipher. ‘Because you are Mrs Vasilis. Sasha Vasilis.’

Sasha. It felt wrong. Not her. ‘I don’t think that’s my name.’

‘What is your name?’

Blank. Nothing. Frustration.

The doctor spoke again. Soothingly. ‘Sasha. Your name is Sasha and you are married to this man, Apollo Vasilis.’

She looked at the man again. He was definitely frowning now and he didn’t look particularly happy to be married to her. She shook her head briefly but it caused a sharp pain over her eye. She stopped. ‘But that can’t be possible, we just met.’

So, if you just met, how can you know him intimately? How can you be married?

A headache was forming, right between her eyes. A dull throb. As if sensing this, the doctor said briskly, ‘That’s enough for now, she needs to rest. We can come back later.’

A nurse stepped forward and did something to a drip beside the bed. Soon that comforting blackness was enveloping her in its warm embrace again and she eagerly shut out the growing panic and fear, and disturbing questions. And him, the most disturbing thing of all, and she wasn’t even sure why.

Two days later

‘We think your memory loss came from the traumatic experience of the crash. There’s no perceptible or obvious injury to your brain that we can see after the scans we did, but you can only remember meeting your husband for the first time and nothing else. Nothing from before or after. Sometimes the brain does this as a form of protection when an event occurs. We’ve no reason not to believe that in time your memory will return. It could come in small pieces, like a jigsaw coming together, or it could happen all at once.’

Or it might not happen at all?

She was too scared to voice that out loud.

‘Which is why...’ here the doctor looked expressively at Apollo Vasilis, who was a forbidding presence as he stood by the window with his arms folded ‘...you need to be monitored closely while you recuperate.’

The doctor looked back at Sasha, who still didn’t feel like a Sasha. ‘Don’t worry too much about trying to make your memory come back. You need to focus on recovering from your injuries. I’m sure everything will return to full functionality.’

Sasha wondered what her brain was protecting her from.

The doctor stood up. ‘You can go home now. We’ll keep in touch to monitor your progress and let us know as soon as you start to remember anything.’

That felt like a very dim and distant possibility. Her brain still felt as if it was just a dense mass of grey fog. Impossible to penetrate. And where was home? The doctor had told her she was English, so presumably she’d been born and brought up there.

When she’d enquired about family, her husband had told her that her parents were dead and she had no siblings. Just like that. Stark and unvarnished. She’d felt an ache in her chest near her heart but when she couldn’t put names or faces to her parents it was hard to feel profound grief.

The doctor left now and Sasha looked at Apollo Vasilis. Her husband. He looked as grim as he had when she’d regained consciousness. Wasn’t he pleased she’d survived the accident? He wore a three-piece suit today, steel grey, with a tie. He oozed urbane sophistication but Sasha sensed the tightly wound energy in his body. As if he was ready to cast off the trappings of civility to reveal a much more elemental man underneath.

Ironically, the one memory she did have, of the night they’d met, she remembered him smiling. Laughing even. His face transformed from breath-taking to devastatingly gorgeous. She remembered his voice. Deep and accented.

Except she’d been told that that night had been four months ago. And since then they’d been married. And she’d apparently moved to Greece from England. It was all too huge to absorb and Sasha found herself avoiding thinking about it too much.

‘Are you ready? The car is waiting outside.’

Was she ready? To leave here with a man who was little more than a stranger to her? In a foreign land she had no memory of coming to? But she nodded once, briefly, and stood up, her limbs still feeling a little weak.

Apollo picked up a bag. He’d brought her clothes to change into and they only compounded her sense of disorientation because she couldn’t imagine choosing clothes like this. Flared cream-coloured silk trousers with slits up each side, a matching silk singlet top and a cropped blazer jacket. Spindly high-heel sandals that made her feel even more wobbly.

He opened the door and stood back. Sasha locked her limbs and walked out of the room with as much grace as she could muster.

Apollo walked down the corridor beside his wife. She was walking slowly, as if she’d never worn high heels before, with all the grace of a spindly-legged foal. Which was bizarre because the only time he could recall ever seeing her in flat shoes had been when they’d met that first night.

She stumbled a little and he took her elbow to steady her. She glanced up at him, her cheeks a little pink. ‘Thank you.’

Her hair was down around her shoulders in soft natural waves that he knew she usually preferred to be straightened.

‘It’s nothing.’ He gritted his jaw at his body’s reaction to the feel of her arm under his hand, her slender body brushing against his ever so slightly. She wasn’t wearing the scent she usually did. He’d watched her take it out of the bag earlier and she’d tested it on her wrist, immediately scrunching up her nose. She’d looked at him. ‘This is my perfume?’

He’d nodded. Privately he’d always had the same reaction when he’d smelled it. To recoil. It was too overpowering. Sickly sweet. She’d put it back without spraying any.

But now all he could smell was her. Soap and something uniquely and mysteriously feminine. Her scent reminded him uncomfortably again of meeting her for the first time when he’d been blown away by her fresh-faced beauty. Her impact on him had been like a punch to his solar plexus, driving the breath out of his lungs.

And to this day he couldn’t figure it out. He’d seen plenty of women who were more beautiful than Sasha. Slept with them too. But something about her, from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, had got to him. Captivating him. As much as he hated to admit it.

She’d seduced him with her wide-eyed act of innocence, and had then trapped him with the oldest trick in the book. The burn of that transgression and the burn of his momentary weakness for her was like permanent bile in his gut.

His desire for her had dissipated as quickly as it had blown up, and he’d welcomed it, in light of her betrayal, but now it was back, as if to mock him for ever believing he’d had it under his control.

She was playing him all over again but this time he wouldn’t stand for it.

Sasha winced as Apollo’s fingers tightened almost painfully on her arm. She tried to pull away and he looked at her. ‘I’m okay now, you can let go.’

Instantly his expression blanked and he took his hand away, saying smoothly, ‘My car is here, just outside the door.’

Sasha saw a sleek silver SUV waiting for them, with a driver holding the open back door. It reinforced her sense of being in an alternate dimension where nothing made much sense.

She stepped out of the hospital and gulped in fresh air, hoping that might make her feel more grounded. The Greek sun was warm but the early summer air wasn’t too humid yet.

Sasha climbed into the car. Her shoes were pinching painfully after only walking a few feet. She couldn’t believe that she wore this kind of shoe on a regular basis.

Or... She slid a look at Apollo, as he got into the back of the car on the other side, maybe Apollo liked them and she wore them to please him?

That thought sent another shiver through her. The thought of pleasing him. Except, if the frosty vibes were anything to go by, he wasn’t pleased and she had no idea why.

The car pulled away from the hospital and Apollo exchanged a few words in Greek with the driver, who then put up the privacy partition. Sasha was so aware of him it was as if an outer layer of skin had been removed.

A hand rested on one thigh. Square, masculine. Long fingers. Blunt nails. His suit looked as if it had been made specifically to hug his muscles and emphasise his powerful physique. He looked at her and she didn’t have time to pretend she wasn’t ogling him.

‘Okay?’

She nodded. It was a civil question but the tension was palpable. Instead of asking a question she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to, she asked, ‘Where are we going now?’

‘The villa. It’s not far from here.’

‘Have I lived there long?’

‘For the past three months, since we married.’

‘Where did we marry?’ It suddenly struck Sasha at that moment that, if not for the fact that this man had turned up to claim her after the accident, when apparently she’d been found wandering by the road in a disorientated state a day and night after being reported missing, he could be anyone.

He looked at her for such a long and assessing moment that she could feel heat creeping back into her cheeks but then he plucked a small sleek phone out of his pocket and tapped the screen and handed it to her. ‘We married in Athens in a civil ceremony.’

She looked at the screen of the phone. On it was a link to an official press release announcing their marriage with an accompanying picture. Sasha enlarged it. It was her. But it didn’t feel like her. She wore a knee-length floaty silk sleeveless dress, cut on the bias and slashed almost to the navel. Eye-wateringly high heels. Her hair was teased into big curls and she seemed to be wearing a lot of make-up. Gold jewellery. An enormous-looking diamond ring. She felt a rush of exposure and embarrassment when she looked at the picture. And then she looked down at her bare fingers. ‘Did I have rings?’

‘Yes. The doctors said you must have lost them in the accident.’

She looked at Apollo. ‘I hope they weren’t too valuable.’

He gave her a funny look. ‘Don’t worry, they were insured.’

Sasha looked back at the picture on the phone. She was clutching Apollo’s arm and beaming; however, her new husband looked anything but happy in the picture. The memory she had of him smiling had to be a figment of her imagination. A conjured-up image.

She skimmed the press release.

Apollo Vasilis, Greek construction tycoon, weds his English girlfriend Sasha Miller in a private civil ceremony.

The bare minimum of information. Sasha handed the phone back, feeling even more disorientated. A million questions buzzed in her head but she could feel a headache starting and the doctor had told her not to overdo things.

She looked out the window and saw glimpses of huge houses set in verdant grounds behind tall wrought-iron gates or massive walls. Clearly this was a wealthy area.

Before long the car turned in towards a massive pair of wrought-iron gates. They opened mechanically and a man in little security hut outside waved them in after a few words with the driver.

Sasha stared out the window in awe as lush grounds opened up around them. The driveway led up to a massive courtyard and a two-storey villa-style house with steps leading up to the front door where a woman in a uniform was waiting.

Apollo got out when the car had stopped at the bottom of the steps and before Sasha could figure out where the handle was, the door was being opened and she saw his large hand extending towards her.

She had no choice but to put her hand in his and her skin prickled with a kind of foreboding, as if her body knew it would react in a certain way and she had no idea what to expect.

Yes, you do.

Her hand touched his and an electric jolt went right through her. Reflexively her fingers curled around his. Face flaming at her reaction, she let him help her from the car and as soon as she could, she snatched her hand back.

Her reaction to him on top of the fog in her brain was too much. She resolved not to touch him again if she could help it and then that little voice reminded her that they were married.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps at the thought that they must be sharing a room. A bed. Her heart seemed to triple its rate. Apollo was almost at the top of the steps. He turned around and she saw a look of something almost like impatience cross his face.

‘Sasha?’

She thought furiously as she climbed the steps, taking care in the impractical shoes. Maybe she could suggest they sleep separately until her memory returned? Surely he wouldn’t expect her to share his bed when she felt as if she hardly knew him? No matter what her body might be telling her.

At the top of the steps was the older woman in the uniform. She was a stranger to Sasha. And she didn’t look welcoming. Dark hair pulled back and a matronly bosom. She seemed to be eyeing Sasha warily, as if waiting for her to do something unexpected.

Sasha stepped forward and held out a hand. ‘Hello.’ The woman flinched minutely and then she glanced at Apollo and seemed to get some kind of sign because she looked back at Sasha and took her hand, saying in heavily accented Greek, ‘Welcome home, Kyria Vasilis.’

Sasha felt a light touch on her back that distracted her from the woman’s odd reaction. ‘You don’t remember Rhea?’

She shook her head, ‘I’m so sorry, but no.’

The women let her hand go, eyes widening. Apollo said, ‘I’ll show my wife around the villa. We’ll eat something light in a couple of hours, Rhea. On the smaller terrace.’

The woman nodded and disappeared into the villa. Sasha looked into the massive circular reception area. She felt absolutely sure, at that moment, that she’d never seen these marble floors or set foot in this place before.

Which was wrong. She’d been living here. She obviously couldn’t trust her own instincts.

She stepped over the threshold warily, and followed Apollo as he led her into the first of a dizzying array of rooms leading off the circular hall. There was a formal reception room, informal reception room. Formal dining room, informal dining room.

The rooms were all furnished with sumptuous but elegant furniture. Muted colours in varying but complementary shades in each room. It was modern but felt classic. Huge canvases adorned the walls and antiques nestled among more modern artefacts.

Each room had huge French doors that led out to a terrace that ran the length of the house, overlooking the impressive garden. Even more impressive was the view of Athens in the distance.

Sasha walked out of the formal dining room onto the terrace. They were far above the teeming ancient city, the air heavy with the scent of the flowers that climbed the wall of the terrace in colourful profusion. She tried desperately to conjure up a memory of having looked at this view from here before, but her mind stayed blank. Apollo came and stood beside her on the terrace and her skin prickled. Sasha asked, ‘Is this an old house?’

‘No, I built it on this site.’

Sasha looked at him. ‘You built it?’

His jaw tightened. ‘Not me personally. My construction company.’

Sasha turned to face him. ‘So...you own a construction company?’

He looked at her and nodded. ‘Vasilis Construction.’

Sasha frowned. ‘Is it a family business—do you have family?’

An expression flashed across his face so fast she couldn’t decipher it but it had looked for a second like pain. ‘My family are dead. A long time ago. My father was in construction but he worked for someone else so, no, it’s not a family business.’

‘I’m sorry to hear your family are gone.’ Both their families were dead. ‘What happened?’

For a long moment she thought he wouldn’t answer and then he said, ‘A series of unfortunate events.’

He stepped back. ‘Let me show you the rest of the villa.’

Sasha pushed aside her curiosity about ‘a series of unfortunate events’ and followed the broad shoulders of her husband as he led her back into the hall and up a majestic flight of stairs. Villa seemed like an ineffectual word for what was, clearly, a luxurious mansion.

She wondered what it must have been like to come here with her new husband for the first time. A small voice pointed out that she was getting to relive that experience right now. Except, she wondered, had he been any warmer the first time round?

The villa retained that modern but classic feel throughout. Little touches of period features to give it a sense of timelessness.

In the basement there was a state-of-the-art gym and media room, which could convert into a home cinema. On the same level there was a lap pool and steam and sauna room. Not to mention the extra rooms for massage and treatments that opened out onto a lower-level garden with a couple of sun loungers and a hammock hung between two trees.

Apollo waved a hand towards the gardens, ‘There’s also an outdoor pool and changing area.’

He showed her his study on the first floor. A very masculine room with walls lined with shelves and books. Across the hall he opened another door and said, ‘This is your office.’

She couldn’t contain her surprise. ‘I had an office?’

He put out a hand and she went in, not sure why she suddenly felt reluctant. The room was pretty but overdone. A plush white carpet and a white desk were the simplest things in the room. There was an expensive-looking computer on the desk.

The walls were covered with flowery chintzy wallpaper and there were framed prints of the covers of glossy magazines on the wall. Lots of shelves that were mainly empty. A handful of books.

A pink velvet chair and matching footstool. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched.

‘What did I use this for?’

Apollo was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, a look of almost disdain on his face. ‘You said you wanted to set up a PR business.’

Sasha looked at him. ‘Is that what I did? PR?’

He shrugged. ‘When we met you were serving drinks at a reception. I don’t think your knowledge of PR extended beyond the service end of the industry.’

There was a tone to his voice that Sasha chose to try and figure out later. She followed him up to the second level where the bedrooms were situated. He led her past several guest rooms to the end of the corridor, opening a door. ‘This is your room.’

She went in and stopped, turning around. ‘My room?’

‘Your room.’

Apollo filled the doorway easily. Sasha’s mouth felt dry. She was aware of her feet hurting from the high sandals. And a dull ache at the front of her head.

‘We weren’t sharing a room?’

Slowly he shook his head. ‘No.’

Sasha desperately wanted to know why and he looked as if he expected her to ask that question but for reasons she couldn’t understand she didn’t want to know. Just yet.

Because this would also, surely, explain his cool and aloof manner. Why the housekeeper had looked at her so warily.

She had a very tenuous grip on reality as it was, and she didn’t know if she was prepared to hear more revelations about herself.

So she said nothing and walked into the room. It was luxurious, as she’d come to expect in a very short space of time. Carpet so plush her heels sank right into it. Instinctively, she slipped off the sandals, relishing the relief and the sensation of the soft covering underfoot.

She was aware of the massive bed dressed in cool and pristine-looking linens to her left-hand side but ignored it, not liking the way she was so aware of it.

She carried the sandals in her hand over to where French doors opened out onto a balcony that was big enough to hold a sun lounger and table and chairs. From here she could see that the villa had another wing, one storey high, with a smaller terrace covered over with trellis. The outdoor pool was just beyond this area, surrounded by bougainvillea. There were loungers and a changing area.

The grounds sloped away from here, down the hill, leaving the vista open to Athens and the sea beyond.

The full extent of this sheer luxury sank in. It was overwhelming.

She turned back into the room, blinded for a moment by the sun. When her eyes adjusted again she realised that Apollo was a lot closer than she’d expected.

Immediately her pulse quickened and her skin seemed to get tight and hot all over. The bed loomed large behind him. He looked at her with a strange expression, as if fixated, for a moment. She noticed that he had undone his tie and it hung loose now. His top button was open, revealing the strong column of his throat.

He blinked, and the moment was gone. He stepped back and went to a door in the wall, opening it. ‘This is your walk-in closet and the bathroom.’

Sasha followed him, feeling light-headed and a little jittery. But those disturbing sensations and the way he’d just looked at her fled her mind when the space revealed itself and she looked upon more clothes than she could have ever possibly seen in her life. And shoes. And jewellery, in a special glass cabinet.

The clothes—dresses, skirts, trousers, shirts, jeans, leisure-wear—were stacked, hanging and folded in a room the size of a small boutique. There was every colour of the rainbow.

Without even realising she’d moved, Sasha found herself reaching out and touching a glittering lamé dress in dark blue. It slid between her fingers. It looked hardly capable of staying on a body.

She dropped it and looked around, half-horrified as much as fascinated. ‘These are all...mine?’

Apollo was still trying to get his body back under control. For a moment when Sasha had turned from the balcony back into the bedroom, she’d been backlit by the sun, turning her hair into a blazing strawberry-blonde halo around her head.

Her flimsy silk top had clung lovingly to her breasts, the lace of her bra just visible under the delicate material. And he’d had an almost uncontrollable urge to stride forward and take her by the arms and demand to know what she was playing at with this wide-eyed act of innocence. She’d played that card before.

But that urge had fled, to be replaced by a far more dangerous one when she’d looked at him as if he was a wolf about to gobble her up. Instead, all he’d wanted to do was crush that temptingly lush mouth under his and punish her for reawakening this desire, which had lain mercifully dormant for the past three months, in spite of her best efforts to seduce him.

But not any more. It was awake and ravenous. And she was playing him with this little game. After all, feigning amnesia would be child’s play to a woman who had feigned a lot worse.

He’d had enough of the charade. His anger burned bright and hot and he told himself it was that, and not desire that he was feeling.

He said in a low voice that barely contained his anger, ‘You know damn well these are all your clothes because you spent many vacuous hours shopping for them with my credit card. You might have fooled the doctors and nurses at the hospital but there’s no one here but you and me now, so who are you trying to fool with this act, Sasha? What the hell are you up to?’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT THE HELL are you up to?’

Sasha looked at Apollo and it took a few seconds for his words to sink in, they were so unexpected. But then there was almost a strange sense of relief to have the tension bubble over into words so that she could find out why he’d been acting so coolly with her.

She felt his anger but it didn’t scare her. It perplexed her.

‘What are you talking about?’

He waved a hand, bristling all over. ‘This...farce. Pretending to have lost your memory.’

Sasha felt confused. ‘But I’m not. Don’t you think I want to know who I am, or what’s going on?’

She shook her head. ‘Why would I do such a thing?’ But just then a pain lanced through the building dull ache in her head. She winced and put a hand to her forehead, feeling light-headed all of a sudden.

Apollo’s voice was sharp. ‘What is it?’

Sasha was about to shake her head again but she stopped for fear of making it worse. ‘It’s just a headache, the doctor said that they might be frequent for a few days. If I do too much.’

The recent outburst hung between them, the atmosphere charged, but after a few moments Apollo stepped back and said tightly, ‘You should rest for a bit. I can have Rhea bring some food up in a couple of hours.’

Sasha remembered the way the woman had flinched earlier. ‘No, I’ll come down. I’m sure I’ll be feeling better.’

Apollo walked out of the closet space, leaving Sasha with the throbbing pain in her head and feeling utterly bewildered. He thought she was lying?

She heard a noise in the main bedroom and went back out to see a young girl she hadn’t met placing her hospital bag on the bed. The girl looked at her but didn’t smile. She backed away, staring at Sasha as if she might jump at her, and said in halting English, ‘Your bag, Kyria Vasilis.’

She left and Sasha stared after her for a long moment. After Apollo’s outburst just now, it was patently evident that their marriage was not a harmonious one, and that people didn’t seem to like her very much.

Her head throbbed even more, and Sasha went over to the bag that had just been delivered and pulled out the box of painkillers she’d been prescribed. She saw a tray on a table with water and glasses, and took two of the tablets.

She explored further, into the bathroom, which was almost as big as the bedroom. A massive bath and walk-in shower. Two sinks. Cream tiles and gold fittings that looked classy, not tacky.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and sucked in a breath. She was deathly pale. No wonder Apollo had asked if she was okay. She looked a wreck. Shadows under her eyes. The scratch on her cheek. The yellowing of the bruise on her forehead where she’d bumped her head.

She felt disconnected from herself, which she supposed was only to be expected. But she felt as though didn’t belong here, in this hushed rarefied place. Where people looked at her as if she’d done something to them. Where her husband accused her of lying.

Why would he think she’d do such a thing?

She pushed that to one side for the moment, it was too much to absorb and think about.

‘Sasha...’ She said the word out loud. It still didn’t feel right. ‘Hello, my name is Sasha Vasilis.’ Nothing but a faint echo.

She didn’t need to have bruises and scrapes to know that she was very far out of this man’s league. But a memory flashed into her head at that moment of feeling effervescent. Of him, smiling at her indulgently.

She’d been so happy.

If anything, that memory only made her feel more disorientated. She spied the bath behind her and suddenly wanted to wash away this confusing chain of events. If such a thing was possible.

She ran the bath and stripped off, stepping into the luxuriously scented silky water a few minutes later. It soothed her bruised and injured body, but it couldn’t soothe the turmoil in her belly or clear the pervasive fog in her head.

Apollo stood looking at the woman on the bed. She was in a towelling robe that dwarfed her body, her hair spread around her like a rose-gold halo. One arm was on her chest, the other flung above her head.

One slim pale leg was visible through the gap in the robe and Apollo could see the smattering of freckles across her knee. And it made his blood run hot.

Damn her.

Damn her to hell and back.

He’d met her four months ago and he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since then. First of all because he’d been unable to get her out of his head and then because she had shown him who she really was. A manipulative, conniving, mercenary—

She moved on the bed and made a small sound.

Those pale eyelids flickered open and he was looking down into two bright pools of blue. So blue that the first time he’d seen her huge eyes he’d been instantly reminded of the skies of his childhood, before things had grown much darker.

She blinked and Apollo came out of his trance, suddenly feeling exposed. He took a step back. ‘I knocked on the door but there was no answer.’

Sasha sat up. He caught a scent of something like crushed roses. And clean skin. He gritted his jaw before saying, ‘Dinner is ready. I can have the food delivered to your room.’

She shook her head and that bright hair slipped over one shoulder. He was rewarded with a memory of wrapping it around his hand as he’d tugged her head back so that he could press kisses down along the column of her throat, and then lower to the pouting provocation of her tight pink nipples.

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll come down. My headache is much better.’

Sasha was still somewhere between waking and sleeping. She hadn’t expected to conk out like that when she’d lain down for a short nap after her bath, but now she could see the dusky sky outside. It had also taken a minute to realise she wasn’t dreaming when she’d opened her eyes to see Apollo standing by the bed. It had been the fierce expression on his face that had woken her properly.

It reminded her of his angry words. ‘What the hell are you up to?’

He’d changed into dark trousers and a dark shirt, open at the neck. Sleeves rolled up as if he’d been working at his desk. In this position, looking up at him, it felt intimate. An echo of a previous moment teased at her memory, as if she’d sat in this very position looking up at him like this, but in a very different situation.

‘I’ll just change and come down,’ she said quickly.

Apollo took another step back and Sasha could breathe a little easier. He said, ‘Very well. I’ll send Kara to show you down in a few minutes.’

Sasha had the distinct impression that he would have preferred it if she’d said she’d eat alone in her room and in a way it would have been easier for her too. But she also had a strong instinct to try and do her utmost to regain her memory and if that meant interacting with her antagonistic husband then so be it.

‘Just through here, Kyria Vasilis.’

Sasha smiled at the same young woman who had brought up her bag earlier. Kara. The girl didn’t smile back.

After Apollo had left, Sasha had washed her face and gone into the walk-in closet to find some clothes. She’d finally pulled out the plainest and most modest clothes she could find. A pair of slim-fitting Capri pants and a cropped sleeveless shirt. The shirt was white but the trousers were yellow. Apparently she didn’t really do muted colours.

And, thankfully, she’d found some flattish shoes. Wedge espadrilles. Unworn, still in the box.

She walked through a less formal lounge on the ground floor that she hadn’t seen earlier and through open French doors to another smaller terrace. The one she’d seen from her balcony earlier, covered by a trellis and surrounded by a profusion of flowers. The view here was of the gently sloping grounds down to the outdoor pool.

The scent of the flowers permeated the air when she stepped outside. The air was warm and still. Peaceful. It soothed her fraying edges and foggy mind a little. Apollo looked up from where he’d been staring broodily into the distance, long fingers around the stem of a glass of wine.

He stood up immediately and something about that small automatic gesture gave her a tiny spurt of reassurance. He pulled out a chair and she sat down, his scent easily eclipsing the sweeter scent of the flowers to infuse the air with something far more potent.

She felt the tension between them. Not surprising after his words earlier but there was also another kind of tension, deep in the core of her body. A hungry kind of tension, as if she knew what it felt like to have that tension released.

He sat down opposite her and picked up a bottle of Greek white wine. ‘Would you like a glass?’

Sasha wasn’t sure. Did she like wine? Might it help take the edge off the unbearable tension she was feeling? She nodded. ‘Just a little, please.’

When he’d poured the wine, she lifted her glass and took a sip, finding it light and sharp. She did like it. The housekeeper Rhea appeared then with appetiser plates of dips and flatbreads. Apollo must have noticed her looking at the food because he pushed a bowl towards her. ‘This is tzatziki with mint, and the other one is hummus.’

She dipped some bread in each, savouring the tart taste of the tzatziki and the creamier hummus.

Apollo seemed to have directed his brooding stare onto her and to try and deflect his attention she said, ‘Your home is lovely.’ It didn’t feel like her home, even if she had been living here for a few months. ‘You must be very successful.’

Apollo took a sip of wine. She thought she saw a quirk of his mouth but it was gone when he lowered his glass. ‘You could say that.’

She had the feeling he was laughing at her. Before she could respond, Rhea appeared again to clear the starters and then Kara brought the main courses. Chicken breasts with salad and baby potatoes. Sasha blushed when her stomach rumbled loudly. She took a bite and almost groaned at the lemon-zesty flavour of the chicken. She felt as if it had been an age since she’d eaten anything so flavoursome.

When her plate was clean she looked up to find Apollo putting down his own fork and knife and staring at her.

‘What?’ She wiped her mouth with her napkin, suddenly aware that she’d fallen on the food like a starving person.

‘Apparently you’ve discovered an appetite,’ was Apollo’s dry response.

Rhea appeared again and gathered up the plates. Sasha said automatically, ‘That was lovely, thank you.’

Rhea stopped and looked at her as if she had two heads before just nodding abruptly and leaving. Not wanting to ask but feeling as if she had no choice, Sasha said, ‘What do you mean about the food, and why does she look at me like that? And Kara too...as if they’re scared of me.’

‘Because they probably are. You didn’t exactly treat them with much respect. And before, you treated any food you were served as if it was an enemy to be feared.’

Sasha could feel the onset of that faint throbbing, signalling a headache again as she absorbed his answer. ‘You really don’t believe that I have amnesia?’

Apollo was expressionless. ‘Let’s just say that your past behaviour wouldn’t give me confidence in your ability to tell the truth.’

What happened?

The words trembled on Sasha’s lips but like a coward she swerved away from inviting an answer she wasn’t ready to hear yet. Especially if what he’d just told her was true. Apollo was looking at her with that disdainful expression that was fast becoming far too familiar, and painful.

‘I’m not lying. I promise. I wish I could make the fog in my brain clear but I can’t. Believe me, there’s nothing more frightening that not knowing anything about yourself, your past, your future. All I have to trust is that you are my husband and that I do live here with you, when it feels like I’ve never been here before.’

She added, ‘I don’t know what I did but if your attitude and Rhea’s and Kara’s are anything to go by it wasn’t good. But how can I apologise for something I can’t even remember doing?’

Shocked at the surge of emotion catching her unawares and making her chest tight, Sasha stood up and went to the edge of the terrace, arms folded tight across her breasts. To her horror, tears pricked at her eyes and she blinked furiously to keep them at bay.

Apollo’s whole body was so rigid with tension he had to force himself to breathe in and relax. He looked at Sasha’s tense body. The curve of her naked waist was visible where the cropped shirt rode above the waistline of her trousers. Her skin was pale. Her hair glinted more red in the light of the setting sun, like a flame against the white of her shirt.

She seemed genuinely upset. Agitated. Apollo didn’t trust her for an instant but for whatever reason—maybe she was buying time to figure out a way to convince him to stay married—she was insisting on this charade.

For the past three months she’d been playing every trick in the book to try and entice him into her bed, but not wanting her had made it easy to resist. Now, though...he couldn’t be sure he would be able to resist and if she knew that...

He stood up and noticed how she tensed even more. He went over and stood beside her. She didn’t look at him. Her jaw was tight. Mouth pursed. He was about to look away but did a double-take when he saw the glistening drop of moisture on the lower lashes of her eye. She’d been crying? To his shock and consternation, instead of feeling disgust, Apollo felt his conscience prick.

In all her machinations up to now she hadn’t ever manufactured actual tears. She’d looked close to tears when she’d turned up at his London office three months ago but she hadn’t cried.

Maybe she’s telling the truth.

He’d be a fool to trust her after everything that had happened, but he knew who she was now, so she couldn’t surprise him again. ‘Look,’ he said, turning to face her. ‘You’ve been through an ordeal and you need to recuperate. We can talk about whether I believe you or not when you’re stronger.’

For the week following Apollo’s pronouncement Sasha existed in a kind of numb fog. She was still bruised and battered enough not to fuss when Kara or Rhea insisted on bringing food to her room, or when they appeared as she sat on the terrace to put a light rug over her legs in the early evening, in spite of the Greek heat.

Sasha noticed that as the days dawned and faded into dusk, the women grew less wary around her. Although she still caught them looking at her suspiciously and whispering in corners when they thought she wasn’t looking.

Of Apollo, there was no sign. He seemed to go to work as dawn broke—she usually woke when she heard the powerful throttle of an engine as it disappeared down the drive—and she was asleep before she heard it return.

In fact, she realised now, if it wasn’t for hearing the engine each morning, she couldn’t even be sure that he came home at all. A man with a house like this would surely have other properties. An apartment in Athens?

A mistress?

That thought caught at her gut as she sat in the dusk on Friday evening on the smaller terrace. The end of the working week. The start of the weekend. If they weren’t sharing a bedroom then obviously this marriage was not a functioning one. And yet the thought of Apollo with another woman made her feel...nauseous.

She barely knew the man beyond some very hazy memories. And yet...she felt a sense of possessiveness now that shocked her because it was so strong. And also a sense of injury, as if something had been done to her.

‘Good evening.’

Sasha nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked around to see the object of her circling thoughts standing just a few feet away. A jolt of electric awareness zinged into her belly. Disconcerting, but also familiar.

He wore dark trousers and the top button of his shirt was open. His hair was slightly dishevelled, as if he’d run a hand through it. His jaw was stubbled.

‘I didn’t hear you come back, I never do.’ She blushed when she said that, aware of how it must sound. ‘I mean, I usually hear your car in the mornings, not in the evenings. I wasn’t sure if you were staying somewhere else. Do you have a property in the city?’ Aware she was babbling now, she clamped her mouth shut.

He walked in sat down on a seat at a right angle to hers. His shirt pulled taut across his chest and she had to drag her eyes away. What was wrong with her? All week she’d been existing in this numbness but now she felt alive, fizzing.

‘I can’t account for why you don’t hear the car in the evening, as I’ve been returning to the villa every night. But, yes, I do have an apartment in Athens. It’s the penthouse at the top of my office building.’

‘You have a building.’ Not just an office. A whole building.

He nodded. ‘And another one in London. And offices in New York, Paris and Rome. I’m finalising plans to open an office in Tokyo next year.’

Sasha couldn’t help but be impressed. ‘That’s a lot of offices. You must have worked very hard.’

He looked utterly relaxed but she could sense the tension in his form. He said, ‘For as long as I can remember.’

‘Did you study for it?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, but I worked on sites at the same time, so I got my diploma while I was working my way up the ranks. I didn’t want to waste any time going to college full time.’

Apollo went still. He hadn’t come here to chat with his treacherous wife who may or may not be feigning amnesia, but if she was faking it then he had to hand it to her for stamina. She hadn’t let her mask slip all week.

Rhea and Kara had told him that she’d been as civil and polite as much as she’d been selfish and rude in the recent past. There seemed to be no glimmer of that earlier incarnation of his wife this evening. Just those huge blue eyes looking at him guilelessly.

He wanted to get up and walk away. So he did get up. But instead of walking away he went over to the low terrace wall and sat on that.

She’d turned in the seat to look at him. She was wearing a white shirt-dress with a gold belt. The dress was buttoned up to a modest height.

Previously, Sasha would have had a dress like this buttoned so low that her underwear would have been visible. Then it had aroused nothing more than irritation. Now, though, all he could see were those little buttons and think about how easy it would be to undo them, baring her breasts to his gaze.

He could see her pale legs. Long and slender. Together and slanted to the side, ladylike.

He would have laughed if he’d been able to muster up a sense of humour. Not too long ago she’d been involved in activities very unbecoming to a lady.

He diverted his mind away from her dress, her legs. Abruptly he found himself saying, ‘My father used to be a foreman for one of Greece’s biggest construction companies. He got injured on the job, and became paralysed from the waist down.’

Sasha put a hand to her mouth, visibly shocked.

A familiar sense of rage that hadn’t been dulled by time settled in Apollo’s belly. ‘He never really recovered. All he knew was how to manage a construction site. He could have done that in an office, in a wheelchair but everyone turned him down. His own employer refused to give him any compensation. His pride was in tatters. He couldn’t support his wife and two sons.’

She frowned, ‘You have a brother?’

Apollo ignored that. He felt ruthless as he told her the rest, watching her reaction carefully. ‘My father killed himself when I was eleven and my brother was thirteen. My mother got cancer not long afterwards and died within a couple of years. My brother and I were sent to into foster care. My brother got involved with a drugs and gang crime. He was stabbed to death when he was sixteen.’

Apollo’s eyes were glowing with intensity. Like dark green jewels. Sasha felt pinned to the spot by them. By his words. She couldn’t speak. Anything she thought of saying felt too trite. Ineffectual.

Apollo continued. ‘I made it my life’s mission to go after the man who had employed my father and cast him aside like a piece of unwanted trash. And I succeeded. It didn’t take much to dismantle his business because he was corrupt to the core. As soon as he went down, hundreds of disgruntled ex-employees came out of the woodwork looking for compensation and that’s what ruined him in the end.’

He was looking at her now as if he expected her to be shocked. And she was. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said huskily. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose so many when you were so young. I don’t know about my family...when my parents died.’

Apollo was reeling that he’d let all of that tumble from his mouth. A bare handful of people knew about his past, and yet he’d just told Sasha everything. The one person in the world that he should trust the least. He waited for the mask to slip, for her to take advantage of sharing his sad story. But it didn’t.

She’d gone pale. And her eyes were huge. And she was frowning now. ‘You said my parents are dead, and I’ve no siblings?’

He nodded. ‘You told me that your mother was a single parent. Your father left when you were small. You looked for him but found out that he’d died some years ago and then your mother died a couple of years ago.’

‘Oh...it’s so strange not to be able to remember my mother. Or looking for my father.’

She seemed to be genuinely tortured. Biting her lip. Apollo had a sudden flashback to kissing her for the first time, feeling the cushiony softness of her mouth opening under his, allowing him to delve deeper...all the way... His hands curled tight around the lip of the wall in a bid to douse the growing inferno in his blood.

He stood up. ‘I have some work calls to make. Goodnight, Sasha.’

She looked distracted. ‘Goodnight.’

He was walking out but he couldn’t get those huge bruised-looking eyes out of his head. He stopped at the door and looked back. She cut a curiously vulnerable figure on the large couch.

‘I’m sorry about your parents.’

She turned around and some of that vivid gold and red hair slipped over her shoulder. ‘Thank you.’

Desire squeezed Apollo like a vice. He wanted to go back over there and pull apart that flimsy dress material and spread it wide so he could see her pale beauty. He wanted to force her to admit that she was just acting. Messing with his head again. He wouldn’t make love to her. He’d have her begging for it and then he’d leave her there, panting and admitting who she really was.

‘Goodnight, Sasha.’

Apollo walked out before he followed his base instincts and did something stupid because that way lay madness. The same madness that had made him want her with a primal need he’d never felt before, the first time he’d looked at her.

He got to his study and poured himself a drink and sat down, unable to excise the image of those huge blue eyes out of his brain. Or the impact they’d had on him the first time he’d seen her.

That night, in that anonymous function room in London, had been the first time that anyone had managed to slip past Apollo’s defences so skilfully, and without even trying. By just looking at him. Something wild and untamed had crackled to life inside him and he’d realised that he’d never truly felt desire before. He’d taken many lovers but had never allowed them to get close. Satisfying his physical urges only.

After his experiences—seeing his father humiliated and belittled and ultimately destroyed; after seeing his mother wither and fade from their lives, a sad broken woman; and after watching his brother self-destruct—Apollo had vowed never to let anyone close enough to make him care when they would inevitably leave. He’d been left behind too many times.

But for the first time, with Sasha, satisfying his physical urges had taken on a whole new level of need. He’d had to have her. And so he’d followed his base instincts and indulged.

He’d lost himself in her before he’d come back to his senses. And remembered who he was. And what he was. And what he was was empty inside.

Revenge had filled that space for a long time. He’d only been coming to terms with the fact that it hadn’t felt more cathartic to have achieved his goals when he’d met Sasha. He’d put her effect on him down to that curious space he’d been in. Anticlimactic. Restless. Dissatisfied, when he should have been satisfied. At peace.

There was a knock on his door and he tensed. ‘Come in.’

Sasha took a deep breath outside Apollo’s study door. She knew he’d said he was taking or making calls but she hadn’t heard his voice when she’d diverted to his office en route to her bedroom, so she’d acted on impulse.

She opened the door and he was sitting behind his desk, a brooding expression on his face. He frowned. ‘Is everything okay?’

She nodded, but immediately regretted her decision when that awareness of him coiled tight, down low in her belly. ‘Fine. I just...’ She stopped. She shouldn’t have come here now. The way he made her feel just by looking at her was so...disturbing. She wanted to run but also stay rooted to the spot.

He frowned. ‘Sasha—’

She spoke in a rush. ‘I know you’re busy, but I want to know why our marriage is...like this. Separate bedrooms. Tense. You don’t like me very much.’

At all, whispered a little voice.

Apollo put down the glass in his hand. He stood up and came around to sit on the edge of his desk. Arms folded across his chest, which only drew attention to his muscles. Heat washed up through her body and she couldn’t stop it.

Had she always been so aware of men?

Maybe it’s just him, whispered a voice.

Somehow, she couldn’t deny that it was entirely possible she only reacted like this to him.

Apollo saw the twin flags of colour in Sasha’s cheeks. He was almost disappointed that she was showing her true colours again so soon. She’d nearly had him convinced. But coming here like this now...she must have seen his desire for her. And now she was taking advantage of it.

He was tempted to just confront her right now, but something in him counselled against acting too hastily. ‘Our marriage had some...issues, but I don’t think now is the time to go into them.’

He watched her carefully, which only made him more aware of her. Aware that he wanted her.

Witch.

She looked at him. ‘I don’t know why but I feel I need to apologise, as if I’ve done something wrong and that’s why you hate me and Rhea and Kara look at me as if I’m about to do something unexpected.’

Apollo fought the pull to believe her. To trust in this image of innocence she was putting forward. She’d done it before. He straightened up from the desk. He told himself he was moving closer to test her, just to see if she would show her true colours. Not because he wanted to.

Her eyes got big and round and the pink in her cheeks deepened as she looked up at him as if he were a big bad wolf. Something snapped inside Apollo, some control he’d been exerting since she’d woken in the hospital bed and looked at him with those blue eyes, re-igniting his desire.

He reached out and caught a lock of her hair, winding it around his finger. It felt like silk. It reminded him of how it had felt when her hair had trailed over his naked chest the night they’d made love.

‘I prefer it like this, loose and wild. You preferred it straightened.’

‘I did?’ Sasha’s chest constricted. Why couldn’t she seem to breathe? The air was thick and full of something that felt alive. The awareness she felt turned into a pulse in her blood. Heavy and persistent.

Almost as if he was talking to himself, Apollo said, ‘It was like this the night we met.’

‘I don’t... I don’t remember. I mean, I remember bits of that night but not details...’

Apollo stood in front of her, eyes roving her face. ‘Are you sure, Sasha? Really? Or is this just an elaborate stunt to gain my trust? To get back into my bed?’

His words acted like cold water in her blood. She pulled back, dislodging his hand from her hair. ‘No. I wouldn’t do that.’

He moved closer again and put his hand under her chin, tipping her face up. So much for his words dousing the heat. It sizzled back at his touch, just as potent.

‘Wouldn’t you? It’s no less than you’ve already done, but I have to admit, if you are acting, your skills are exemplary.’

For the first time since she’d woken up in the hospital something more than confusion and bewilderment rushed through her, distracting her. Sasha took his hand to pull it down. ‘Maybe that’s because I’m not acting.’

But instead of pushing his hand away to break all contact with him and his cynical words, she couldn’t seem to let go. Electricity hummed through her, mixing with the high emotion to create a volatile mix.

For a crazy second she almost thought he was going to kiss her. But then he broke contact and stepped back. His eyes were so dark in the dim light they looked black. Sasha felt a little dizzy, as if they had kissed.

He said curtly, ‘You should go to bed, Sasha. It’s late.’ He went to the door and held it open.

Sasha couldn’t understand what had just come over her. The depth of the need to have him kiss her still left her shaken.

Dear God, had she actually asked...?

She all but ran out of his office before she could read the disgust on his face or, worse, let him see the awful surge of humiliation climbing up from her gut.

Apollo waited until Sasha had disappeared before closing his door. He went back to his desk and downed his drink in one, as if that might burn away how close he’d come to taking what she was offering, lifting that lush mouth towards him, begging with those huge eyes to kiss her.

One minute he’d been wondering how she’d managed to sneak under his guard again, and the next he’d been on the verge of hauling her closer to relive that night they’d shared—which was exactly what she’d been angling for since they’d married.

His hand tightened around the crystal glass so much he had to relax for fear of breaking it.

Sexual frustration bit sharply into his gut. He’d spent the last three months without so much as a flicker of arousal when he’d looked at his wife. And now it wasn’t a flicker. It was an inferno.

He couldn’t understand what was happening. But he knew that, no matter how intense it got, he would not be weak. He’d been weak for her once before and she’d upended his life. It wouldn’t happen again.

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