LITMIR.BIZ

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she is.’ Stunning was probably an understatement.

      ‘But I’d say she’s high maintenance, and I can’t see her climbing Kilimanjaro.

      The comment startled a laugh from Chloe. ‘It sounds to me like you measure all women by some pretty high standards.’

      He smiled and nodded. ‘My wife is an extraordinary woman.’

      Chloe stood and listened as the man launched into what was clearly his favourite subject. An emotional lump settled in her throat as he talked about his wife. What would it feel like to be the centre of a man’s universe? she wondered wistfully.

      * * *

      Nik walked past his sister and moved to where Lucy stood.

      ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,’ he muttered.

      ‘I was the one who told you that,’ the model reminded him. ‘But you’ve been my beard on more than one occasion, darling, so I kind of owe you. Do you realise how much money is in this room tonight?’

      His eyes moved over the heads of the fellow guests assembled; most were members of the Greek expat community, and all of them would have considered not having a private yacht as being poverty-stricken. ‘That figures. Ana is raising money for one of her causes again.’

      ‘So you’re not in danger of meeting Ms Right here. Does that mean you’re dumping me already, darling?’

      ‘Funny... God, I need a drink.’

      He placed a guiding hand under Lucy’s elbow, and she immediately exclaimed mockingly, ‘Ooh, darling, I do so love it when you’re masterful. Ah!’

      She staggered a little as Nik suddenly released her arm without warning.

      It was an automatic response to a soft peal of laughter that made Nik turn his head. Although it hadn’t been loud, there was something attractively infectious about the sound that tugged his lips into a smile.

      As his eyes surfed across the heads of the other guests to the source of the sound, his smile snuffed out as recognition crashed through his nervous system like a tsunami, and for several seconds his mind went a total blank, the effect of sheer shock colliding with serendipity.

      He took a deep breath and decided he’d call it something more mundane—convenient. Or he would once he got his rampant, raging libido under control. It took another few deep breaths to think beyond the heat that had streaked down his body and settled painfully in his groin.

      His cognitive powers were clearly working on the reserve battery. He had no idea how long he stood there paralyzed, it could have been a second or an hour, before, like a man waking from a trance, he finally shook his head.

      The air trapped in his lungs hissed out as in a single urgent sweep his dark, penetrating stare took in every single detail of her. The soft shiny blonde hair falling from a slight widow’s peak down her back and cut shorter at the sides to frame a vivid beautiful face, the sinuous curves of her lush body outlined by the flowing lines of blue silk.

      She was stunning.

      He’d sometimes wondered, generally around two a.m., if he exorcised the woman, would he finally exorcise the nightmare? The two seemed so intrinsically linked, maybe they were interdependent? It had been an intellectual exercise he’d never really taken seriously as he hadn’t expected their paths to cross again.

      Well, it was no longer intellectual, and neither was the roar in his blood, and he knew that not to explore the theory now that he had the opportunity would be insane!

      * * *

      Chloe knew Nik was standing there even before Spiros’s glance moved past her, alerted by the fine invisible downy hairs on her body rising in reaction to his invisible presence.

      She emptied her glass carefully, wiped her expression of anything that could be interpreted as a desire to dig a big hole and jump in it and mentally circled the wagons against attack.

      If she refused to be defined by the scars she wore, she was definitely not going to be defined by a past mistake, even if he was six foot three and sinfully gorgeous!

      Her defensive stance wasn’t against anything he might say or do, as there was a very strong possibility that he wouldn’t even remember the night they had spent together, but against her own indiscriminate hormones, which still, it seemed, responded independently of her intellect to his rampant animal magnetism.

      Oh, for God’s sake, Chloe, you need to get a life!

      While she was silently chastising herself Nik had moved level with her. ‘Spiros.’

      His voice had the same rough velvet, almost tactile quality she remembered...but this time she was only shivering because she was standing in a draft, she told herself stubbornly.

      They were actually standing level, side by side as he stretched out a hand to the older man, but Chloe didn’t turn her head. She didn’t need to, because she could already feel the sheer physical power of his tall, muscled frame.

      ‘No Petra tonight?’

      ‘No, she’s resting up. She sprained an ankle during training.’

      Nik made a sympathetic noise in his throat. ‘For another marathon?’

      The older man gave a rueful nod. ‘I think it’s addictive.’

      ‘You not going to join her?’

      ‘I know my limitations.’ Chloe, who felt as though her casual social expression could do with some work but needed all her focus to control her too rapid breathing, took encouragement from the fact that Spiros didn’t seem to notice anything amiss as he touched her arm and looked at Nik. She was still working her way up to it. ‘Do you know Chloe?’

      She held her breath.

      ‘Of course; we go way back,’ Nik said smoothly.

      ‘Royal connections—you kept that quiet, Nik.’

      No longer able to delay the moment, Chloe turned her head, her features arranged in a smile that was intended to project polite indifference, although she had a horrible feeling that a touch of the hunted animal had crept in!

      Her first hope had been that he wouldn’t remember her; the second was that up close he would have some flaw she had forgotten, but again her fairy godmother had not granted her wish.

      So Plan B it was, then: be polite, be distant, be... Oh, God, on an intellectual level the dark, predatory, raw animal magnetism stuff did nothing for her, only it seemed the message hadn’t filtered through to the non-intellectual parts of her that were only listening to the hormonal clamour—but then it was pretty loud.

      His male beauty, and beauty was no exaggeration, hit her at a purely visceral level. She had never experienced anything like it before—well, just the once.

      His high knife-sharp cheekbones, strong aquiline nose, and angular jaw even dusted with stubble gave his face a patrician cast, though this was offset by the overtly sensual outline of his mobile mouth, twisted at that moment into a faintly cynical smile. The same emotion was reflected in his eyes, his quite simply spectacular eyes; deep set and heavy lidded, and fringed with dense, straight, spiky lashes, they were a stunning dark chocolate brown.

      Pinned by those dark eyes, she experienced a ‘rabbit in the headlight’ moment and froze.

      ‘How are you... Chloe?’ He seemed to roll the word over his tongue as though he were tasting it.

      As he’d tasted her... Chloe pushed the thought away but not before her body’s core temperature had raised a few uncomfortable degrees. She lifted a hand to her neck to feel the dull vibration of her heavy pulse, and she fingered the uncut gemstones that felt cold compared to her skin.

      From somewhere she manufactured a smile but the effort made her cheek muscles ache while she silently struggled to keep the door locked against forbidden memories. It wasn’t about wanting to forget him,

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