LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      RACHEL LONG felt curiously numb as she walked away from her mother’s graveside, the scent of damp earth filling the hot Greek air.

      Andrea Demakis had died at the age of forty-five and Rachel felt nothing. No outrage a life should be cut so short, no pain in the loss of a parent, no fear for the future.

      She simply felt nothing at all.

      Not even relief. The emotional turmoil her mother had visited on those around her was no longer Rachel’s personal sword of Damocles, hovering above her and ready to shred her life again. And yet, she experienced no sense of liberation at the knowledge, merely emotional numbness in the face of the finality of death.

      Her feet moved without her directing them, carrying her away from the final statement of a life that had been lived with only one goal, self-gratification.

      The service was long over and the other mourners had gone. All but one. Sebastian Kouros stood in the absolute stillness of extreme grief beside his great-uncle’s grave. He had thrown the first handful of dirt onto the coffin, his steel gray gaze stoic, his big body rigid beneath the unrelenting Greek sun.

      She stopped beside him, unsure what to say.

      Or indeed if she should say anything at all.

      His family had despised her mother and that contempt had glimmered in more than one pair of eyes when they had settled upon her today. No matter how many times she got the look that said no doubt she’d been cut from the same cloth as her hedonistic mother, it hurt. Only Sebastian had never allowed his obvious dislike of Andrea Demakis to impact the way he treated her daughter. He had always been kind to Rachel, gentle toward her shyness and even protective.

      He had been the one to convince his great-uncle to pay for Rachel’s university education, but would Sebastian’s tolerance continue in the face of his beloved uncle’s death?

      After all, everyone knew why the old man was dead.

      He’d married the wrong woman and not only had he lived to regret it, he’d died because of it.

      The truth was, he could have died on any of numerous occasions over the past six years when Andrea had teased him into attempting physical feats better left to men half his age. Only he hadn’t. He had died in a car accident, driving under the influence of alcohol and too much tension after yet another horrific argument with Andrea.

      He’d caught his young wife in bed with another man…again.

      They had fought in front of witnesses and then left the party. Rachel had learned her mother had only been in the car because when she’d refused at first to leave with him, Matthias had threatened to cut her off without a penny and divorce her. Motivated by self-interest when shame would have never swayed her, Andrea had gone with him.

      And they had both died.

      So, what could Rachel say to the grieving man beside her?

      There were no words to undo the pain of the last six years, pain that had culminated in him losing the man who had stood in his father’s stead since he was a young boy. Nevertheless, the compulsion to try could not be ignored.

      She reached for his hand, hers trembling. “Sebastian?”

      Sebastian Kouros felt the small fingers touch his, heard the tentative word quietly spoken and fought the urge to turn on Andrea Demakis’s daughter with all the rage he wanted to vent against a dead woman.

      “What is it pethi mou?” The endearment slipped out much too naturally when he was feeling in no way tender toward her, but she was little—barely five feet, five inches to his six-foot-four and he had followed his great-uncle’s example, calling her by the endearment since first meeting Rachel.

      “You’re going to miss him.” Her soft voice touched a place inside he could not afford to be stirred and maintain the precarious hold he had on his composure. “I’m sorry.”

      He looked down at her, but all he saw was chestnut brown hair pulled into a conservative French twist. Her face was averted.

      “I also.”

      Moss green eyes came around to meet his own. “He should never have married Andrea.”

      “But the marriage changed your life, did it not?”

      Her pale features flushed, but she nodded. “For the better. I can’t deny it.”

      “And yet you chose to accept employment in the States, only returning to Greece for a few short weeks out of the year.”

      “I did not fit into their lifestyle.”

      “Did you try?”

      Her eyes widened at his cold tone, their green depths darkening in confusion. “I didn’t want to. I never liked living amid the chaos of Andrea’s hectic social life.”

      “Had you no thought of trying to mitigate the effects of your mother’s selfish nature on the life of a man who had done so much for you?”

      She stepped away from him, removing her hand from his as if burned. “You cannot live another person’s life for them.”

      “Indeed?” Part of him knew what she said was right.

      He had been unable to stop his great-uncle from making the disastrous marriage, but the deep well of pain inside him denied a totally logical view of the old man’s death.

      “You profited by the marriage. The least you could have done was to at least try to curb Andrea’s destructive behavior.”

      “I couldn’t have done anything.” Her words were firm, but her face was set in guilty lines and he knew she too wondered if she could have changed the steady downward spiral Andrea had made of Matthias’s life. “I couldn’t,” she repeated.

      “Perhaps in this, you also had no desire to try…” His voice trailed off on the subtle accusation and she flinched.

      “I gave up trying to impact Andrea’s lifestyle a long time ago.” Rachel’s voice reverberated with emotional hurt he could not ignore and he had a totally inappropriate urge to kiss the bow-shaped lips set in such an unhappy line until they were soft and glistening.

      Until her eyes reflected sweet passion instead of a past filled with secret sorrows.

      Damn it. There should be no room with the pain gripping his insides for this inexplicable desire.

      It was the same appalling need that assailed him every time he came within ten feet of the beautiful, but reserved woman. His Greek mind could not reconcile wanting Rachel with the disdain he had felt for her mother.

      By rights, he should despise Rachel as much as he had the selfish, ruthless woman who had given birth to her.

      Rachel

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