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had asked the question—her lover, Leonidas Marakaios.
He gazed at her with a faint half-smile quirking his lips, his eyebrows slightly raised. In his hand he held a small black velvet box, and the solitaire diamond of who knew how many carats inside sparkled with quiet sophistication.
‘Margo?’
His voice was lilting, teasing; he thought she was silent because she was so surprised. But, while that was true, she felt something else as well. Appalled. Terrified.
She’d never expected this—never thought that charismatic playboy Leo would think of marriage. A lifetime commitment, a life—and love—you could lose. And she knew the searing pain of losing someone—the way it left you breathless and gasping, waking up in the night, your face awash in tears, even years later...
The moment stretched on too long, and still she said nothing. She couldn’t. Because she didn’t dare say yes and yet no seemed just as impossible. Leo Marakaios was not a man who accepted refusal. Rejection.
She watched as a slight frown pulled his eyebrows together and he withdrew the hand holding the open velvet box to rest it in his lap.
‘Leo...’ she began finally, helplessly—because how could she tell this impossibly arrogant, handsome, charismatic man no? And yet she had to. Of course she had to.
‘I didn’t think this would be that much of a surprise,’ he said, his voice holding only a remnant of lightness now.
She felt a surge of something close to anger, which was almost a relief. ‘Didn’t you? We’ve never had the kind of relationship that...’
‘That what?’ He arched an eyebrow, the gesture caught between wryness and disdain.
She could feel him withdrawing, and while she knew she should be glad, she felt only a deep, wrenching sorrow. This wasn’t what she’d wanted. But she didn’t—couldn’t—want marriage either. Couldn’t let someone matter that much.
‘That...led somewhere,’ she finished, and he closed the box with a snap, his expression turning so terribly cold.
‘I see.’
Words stuck in her throat—the answer she knew she had to give yet somehow couldn’t make herself say. ‘Leo, we’ve never even talked about the future.’
‘We’ve been together for two years,’ he returned. ‘I think it’s reasonable to assume it was going somewhere.’
His voice held a deliberate edge, and his eyes were blazing silver fire. Or maybe ice, for he looked so cold now—even contemptuous. And moments ago he’d been asking to marry her. It almost seemed laughable.
‘Together for two years,’ Margo allowed, determined to stay reasonable, ‘but we’ve hardly had what most people would call a “normal” relationship. We’ve met in strange cities, in restaurants and hotels—’
‘Which is how you wanted it.’
‘And how you wanted it too. It was an affair, Leo. A—a fling.’
‘A two-year fling.’
She rose from her chair, agitated now, and paced in front of the picture window that overlooked the Île de la Cité. It was so strange and unsettling to have Leo here in her apartment, her sanctuary, when he’d never come to her home before. Restaurants and hotels, yes—anonymous places for emotionless no-strings sex...that was what they’d agreed. That was all she could let herself have.
The risk of trying for more was simply too great. She knew what it was like to lose everything—even your own soul. She couldn’t go through that again. She wouldn’t.
Not even for Leo.
‘You seem upset,’ Leo remarked tonelessly.
‘I just didn’t expect this.’
‘As it happens, neither did I.’
He rose from where he’d been sitting, on the damask settee she’d upholstered herself, his tall, rangy figure seeming to fill the cosy space of her sitting room. He looked wrong here, somehow, amidst all her things—her throw pillows and porcelain ornaments; he was too big, too dark, too powerful...like a tiger pacing the cage of a kitten.
‘I thought most women wanted to get married,’ he remarked.
She turned on him then, another surge of anger making her feel strong. ‘What a ridiculous, sexist assumption! And I, in any case, am not “most women”.’
‘No,’ Leo agreed silkily. ‘You’re not.’
His eyes blazed with intent then—an intent that made Margo’s breath catch in her chest.
The sexual chemistry between them had been instantaneous—electric. She remembered catching sight of him in a hotel bar in Milan two years ago. She’d been nursing a single glass of white wine while she went over her notes for the next day’s meeting. He’d strolled over to the bar and slid onto the stool next to hers, and the little hairs on the back of her neck had prickled. She’d felt as if she were finally coming alive.
She’d gone back with him to his room that night. It had been so unlike her—she’d always kept herself apart, her heart on ice. In her twenty-nine years she’d had only two lovers before Leo, both of them lamentably forgettable. Neither of those men had affected her the way Leo did—and not just physically.
From that first night he’d reached a place inside her she’d thought numb, dead. He’d brought her back to life. And while she’d known it was dangerous she’d stayed with him, because the thought of not being with Leo was worse.
Except now that was a reality. She’d thought an affair with Leo would be safe, that he would never ask more of her than she was prepared to give. But here he was asking for marriage, a lifetime, and her response was bone-deep terror.
Which was why she could not accept his proposal.
Except she had a terrible and yet thrilling certainty that he had a different proposal in mind now, as he came towards her, his gaze turning hooded and sleepy even though that lithe, powerful body she knew almost as well as her own was taut with suppressed energy and tension.
She licked her lips, felt the insistent thud of her heart, the stirring of blood in her veins. Even now her body yearned for him.
‘Leo...’
‘You surprise me, Margo.’
She gave a little shake of her head. ‘You’re the one who surprised me.’
‘Clearly. But I thought you’d be pleased. Don’t you want to get married?’
He sounded so reasonable, but she saw a certain calculation in his eyes, and he ran one hand up and down her bare arm, so gooseflesh broke out in the wake of his touch.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
His easy, interested tone jarred with the fingers he continued to run up and down her arm, and with that sleepy, knowing gaze.
‘I’m a career woman, Leo—’
‘You can be a married career woman, Margo. This is the twenty-first century, after all.’
‘Oh? And how would that work, exactly? You live in central Greece—the middle of nowhere. How am I supposed to work from there?’
For a second she thought she saw a gleam of something like triumph in his eyes, but then it sparked out and he gave a negligent shrug of his shoulders. ‘You could commute. The flight from Athens to Paris is only a few hours.’
‘Commute? Are you serious?’
‘We could work something out, Margo, if that’s all that’s stopping you.’
There was a note of challenge in his voice, and she