His Mistress by Blackmail Page 15

She must have drifted off to sleep because when she opened her eyes again Xandro was leaning over her, toying with her hair.

  ‘Distract me, pethi mou. The beast in me that’s dying to take you again is in danger of overpowering the part of me that knows you need a little reprieve.’

  At her immediate blush, he groaned and buried his face in her neck. ‘That blush is most definitely not helping.’

  Sage wanted to ignore the throb between her thighs and give in to the same mounting need. But at the same time she yearned to delve a little deeper beneath his surface. ‘Tell me about Ayia Hera,’ she suggested.

  His whole body stiffened against hers. ‘That wasn’t what I meant by distraction,’ he said coolly as he flung himself away from her.

  Stung, she pulled the sheet over her body. ‘I’m fresh out of after-sex banter then.’

  Tense silence settled in the room. She was debating whether it was time to beat a hasty retreat when he tugged the sheet out of her grasp. ‘Don’t hide yourself from me.’

  ‘Don’t be an ogre then,’ she threw back, but she let him pull her back into his embrace.

  He sighed. ‘Was it too much to hope you’d forgotten I mentioned it?’

  ‘Your description of the sunsets made an impact.’

  ‘Sunset. One. I was there for twenty-four hours ten years ago.’

  She frowned. ‘But...isn’t that where your family is from?’

  ‘It’s where the man who fathered me lives.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘You said you had no family remaining.’

  ‘I don’t. He may have sired me, but he’s dead to me,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Then why do you sound upset when you talk about him?’

  Narrowed eyes glared at her. ‘Stop analysing me.’

  Irritation and the sensation that she didn’t like him this closed-off made her snap, ‘Why? You have no problem pointing out all my faults and prying my secrets from me.’

  ‘I have no problem praising your attributes either. Like the fact that you’re an amazing dancer. And an exceptional kisser. Come over here and put those lips on me.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘I never wanted to be on this subject in the first place. Especially as it isn’t easy for me to talk about.’

  ‘Mine wasn’t easy for me to tell you either.’

  ‘Is this where I give in or risk another battle with you?’

  ‘No. But I still want to know.’

  ‘Kiss me first, Sage.’

  ‘Xandro...’

  His jaw clenched and his gaze fixed itself on the high ceiling. ‘Fine. For the sake of peace, I’ll let you win this round. But I’m making love to you again when I’m done with this wretched story. So prepare yourself for that.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘BEFORE I WAS BORN, four generations of my family lived in Ayia Hera. It’s a medium-sized village on an island south of Skiathos. Like most of those places, one family tends to own and run things. In my family’s case it was the Theakopolous family. They employed ninety per cent of the village and controlled the infrastructure. Turned out that they controlled the authorities, too.’

  Sage rested her chin on his chest, anxiety already whipping through her. ‘What happened?’

  ‘My grandparents worked directly for them. She was the cook and he was their driver. The Theakopolouses had one child, a son my mother grew up with. No one expected anything to happen between them. As a cook’s daughter, she was never going to be good enough for him. Besides, at twenty-one he was engaged to someone else.’ His lips twisted. ‘But he chose to indulge himself on the side anyway.’

  ‘He...didn’t force himself on your mother, did he?’ she asked.

  He glanced at her for a moment. ‘No. As far as I know it was consensual. A one-night thing that could’ve been brushed under the carpet. Except she got pregnant with me.’ Dark clouds shifted through his eyes as exhaled harshly. ‘My mother was young, with stars in her eyes. But that changed soon enough. There wasn’t to be a sudden declaration of love or even support. Hell, there wasn’t even going to be the concession of having her baby in her family home, the way she’d been born. When she plucked up the nerve to reveal her pregnancy, my father denied any involvement.’

  Sage’s hand stilled on his chest, her instinct warning her that there was more to the story. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘His fiancée’s parents got wind of the possible scandal and threatened to end the engagement. The potential loss of a dynastic merger couldn’t be allowed. The terms of reparation did not go in my family’s favour.’

  ‘Xandro...’

  When he glanced at her, his eyes were a stormy grey. The deep breath he took did nothing to soften the harsh mask of painful recollection on his face. ‘They could’ve allowed my grandparents to take my mother away, as they wanted to do. But the offer to disappear quietly wasn’t enough apparently. For one night’s indulgence, they decided that only my family’s total disgrace would suffice.’ He paused, his mouth flattening in a furious line that whitened the edges. ‘Several items of jewellery went missing from the Theakopolous household. Enough to interest the authorities and ensure the culprit would pay a high price. A custodial price.’

  ‘They accused your mother?’

  He shook his head. ‘They accused my grandparents. A member of the household staff warned them. They had every intention of defending their innocence, until the items were found in their possession.’

  ‘They were framed?’

  ‘Conclusively,’ he answered with chilling fury.

  ‘All of that to deny the pregnancy?’

  ‘It was effective. After all, if the parents of the unwed girl suddenly named the village prince as the father of her unborn child but then were branded as thieves, who would’ve believed them? They also hoped that without her parents’ support my mother would be forced to get rid of the baby.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  His jaw clenched tight. ‘She was only eighteen years old, with a lifetime of being whispered about in front of her, and parents who would have no means of supporting her had they been in jail.’

  ‘So they left.’

  ‘In the middle of the night, with little more than the clothes on their backs.’

  Sage didn’t need to hear the rest of the story. Xandro had been born in New York. And that was where his story started. But he wasn’t finished.

  ‘I grew up wondering why they didn’t just go back after I was old enough, to clear their names. My grandfather forbade me from asking, and my grandmother would weep whenever I asked about Ayia Hera. When I was nine I discovered the box in my mother’s belongings.’

  Sage tensed. ‘The box Ben took?’

  He nodded. ‘It contains a ruby necklace.’

  ‘She took it?’

  ‘No. Every piece of jewellery was returned. But somehow the necklace found its way back into my grandparents’ house.’

  ‘You think your father was trying to make amends for what he did?’ Sage asked.

  His gaze met hers for a brief moment. ‘I asked him that same question when I met him for the first time ten years ago. A part of me was stupid enough to want to believe he had a shred of decency.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He had no idea what I was talking about.’

  She gasped. ‘You think it was planted again?’

  He shrugged. ‘My grandparents never found out who put it in their belongings. Returning it would’ve incriminated them all over again.’

  ‘So they kept it as a reminder.’

  Xandro shifted restlessly beneath her. She caressed his chest and after a moment he stilled. ‘I used to hate that necklace. My mother would stare at it for hours, crying over it. She never told me why. It was my grandmother who eventually told me.’

  ‘But it came to mean something to you, didn’t it?’ Why else would he have gone to such great lengths to come after it? Come after her.

  ‘It wasn’t all bad. The ne
cklace also brought her joy. She wore it when she was happy. I was okay with that.’ He shrugged, a touch of that arrogance on display. ‘And eventually it became my reason to succeed. I wanted to buy more of those things for her. I wanted more happy moments for her.’

  ‘But?’

  His face grew bleak. ‘It wasn’t the right kind of success to start off with.’

  Sage’s heart lurched, and she pressed her palm against his cheek. He didn’t seem to notice her touch, his gaze lost in the middle distance of the past.

  ‘I ran away from home and got involved with the gang when I was sixteen. Things spiralled downward from there until I had a choice—do what needed to be done to elevate myself or take the more difficult road to success.’ He exhaled. ‘I made the wrong choice and eventually ended up in juvie a year later.’

  ‘Oh, Xandro...’

  ‘She pawned the necklace to bail me out, and spent every night for the next three months crying about it because she missed it. The gang leader found out about the necklace and decided he wanted to use it to expand his drug empire and told me to bring it to him.’ He stopped.

  ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ she pressed gently.

  He swallowed. ‘No, but I almost did. Instead I went to the pawnshop. The rubies were worth a quarter of a million dollars. I negotiated for a hundred-thousand-dollar advance, used half of it to ensure the gang left my mother and me alone, and enrolled myself in college, got a business degree and discovered that honest work that earned me money wasn’t so bad.’ His smile was less bitter. ‘I wanted more of it. So I worked harder and eventually got the necklace back.’

  After a minute, she cleared her throat. ‘What about your father?’

  He tensed again. ‘What about him?’

  ‘You said you went to see him ten years ago.’

  ‘After my mother died, yes. The meeting lasted forty-five minutes. I haven’t seen him since, and I don’t plan to again.’

  ‘You don’t want to have a relationship with him?’

  He rose and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I found out after my mother died that she’d written to him about me over the years. He never wrote back. He never attempted to find me. He got her pregnant then abandoned her. I have no intention of interacting with him.’

  ‘But you were in Ayia Hera for twenty-four hours. Why did you stay a whole day?’

  His profile held grim satisfaction. ‘I discovered that he’d fallen on hard times. The fiancée he’d ruined my family for had left him and cleaned him out. I got my lawyers to buy everything he owned for a pittance, including his precious manor, and turned it into my one and only three-star hotel. It didn’t deserve a five-star treatment.’

  She gasped, her stomach hollowing at the calculating retribution he’d wrought on his own father.

  He threw an unapologetic glance at her. ‘You think me callous? He was a coward who condemned my mother to a miserable life because he didn’t want to suffer a little discomfort. I may have his blood flowing through my veins, but that is all that links us. I’ve made my peace with that.’

  ‘Okay,’ she murmured. After a beat, she added, ‘I’m sorry about the necklace. I know it’s a symbol of everything you’ve achieved,’ she murmured, the enormity of it settling heavily on her.

  He frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Isn’t that why you want it back so badly?’

  He continued to stare at her as if he was puzzled. Then he surged to his feet, strode away to the window. She could see the restlessness vibrating off him. She sat up, pulled up the sheets to her breasts and wondered whether she’d pushed him too far as she watched him rake his fingers through his hair.

  Finally, he turned to face her. ‘I used to think so...’ He stopped again, his frown deepening.

  Her heart sustained its frantic beat and she had no idea why what he’d left unsaid was so important. ‘But?’

  His gaze swept away from hers. ‘It’s not just that. It’s the last piece of her that I have.’

  The quiet words lashed at her heart. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

  His nostrils flared slightly but his gaze didn’t reconnect with hers. The sensation that she was missing something heightened. But then he nodded and she decided not to probe any further.

  A minute later the decision became null and void when he walked back towards her.

  The revelations of the past hour swirled through the room, ravaged memories unsettled between them. But soon another emotion gained supremacy. By the time he mounted one knee on the bed and prowled over her, their focus had shifted from past to present.

  ‘I want you,’ he rasped in a low, charged rumble.

  ‘I want you too,’ she whispered, unable to hide her need from him.

  He made a very male sound of satisfaction before dropping his head to ravish her mouth. Time ceased to exist as they chased after pleasure that seemed to intensify with each touch and each kiss.

  Eventually, it was the need to satisfy other hungers that propelled them out of bed.

  They raided the kitchen, feasting on cold cuts and French bread and wine. Xandro tried to tempt her with caviar, then mercilessly mocked her as she gagged on the peculiar taste.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not the only one who detests fish eggs,’ he confessed.

  ‘Then why do you keep it?’

  He shrugged. But then his eyes slid away from hers.

  ‘Oh.’ Her mood dampened by thoughts of previous lovers who had shared similar meals with him in this very kitchen, she started to turn away.

  He caught her by the arms and pinned her against the central island. ‘Don’t turn away from me,’ he muttered thickly against her mouth. There was an odd note in his voice that struck something soft inside her. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve imagined he was feeling vulnerable about what he’d shared with her.

  Welcome to the club.

  In the space of a few hours they’d laid heavy revelations at each other’s feet.

  ‘I’m okay. Seriously,’ she stressed, more to reassure herself.

  ‘You are not. I wouldn’t be either if our roles were reversed.’

  What those words did to her heart Sage didn’t want to admit, even to herself. Because their effect suggested her emotions weren’t as fleeting as she wanted them to be. ‘Stop it. You don’t need to pretend. I’m aware I don’t have any rights here.’

  ‘You have a right to be jealous.’ He leaned down and rubbed his nose against hers. ‘Call me primitive, but I like it.’ He nipped playfully at her mouth, drawing a reluctant smile from her.

  ‘You’re a caveman.’

  ‘And immensely proud of it.’ He kissed her long and deep, and then left her weak and clinging to the counter as he went to the fridge, rummaged through it and dumped the four tubs of caviar he discovered straight into the trash. Then he brushed his fingers in an overdramatic gesture that made her burst out laughing.

  He joined in the laughter as he scooped her up, walked out of the kitchen and back upstairs to his bed. He laid her down and stretched out beside her and, as she tunnelled her fingers through his hair, something snapped and dived inside her. She’d only ever felt something similar through her dancing. A pure strain of emotion that she was almost too scared to name.

  The sensation terrified her. Enough for her to pull back sharply from it because she knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was potentially life-changing.

  ‘What is it?’ Xandro was frowning down at her.

  ‘Nothing,’ she hurriedly answered, then tried to remove the doubt lingering in his eyes by rising on her elbows and kissing him. Whether she succeeded in distracting him or he chose to let it go, she wasn’t sure. And then she stopped wondering altogether as he took over, deepened the kiss and blanked her mind to everything else.

  Everything except the lingering sensation that chased after her in her dreams, and roused her in the middle of the night.

  Cautiously opening her eyes, she stared at Xandro.

  He was just as
formidable in sleep as he was when awake. But, with his eyes shut and his lips slightly reddened from her kisses, he looked almost as though he could be tamed. The temptation to trace his face with her fingers, commit every beautiful angle and smooth surface to memory, rushed through her. But then that intense sensation of her world shifting beneath her feet raced alongside it. It disturbed her enough for her to carefully shift away from the heavy arm pinning her to the bed. She tensed when he grunted in his sleep. When his breathing levelled out again she got out of bed, threw on her robe and left the bedroom.

  The last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts, but she couldn’t avoid them as she trudged downstairs and headed to her training room.

  Now she understood Xandro’s reason for pursuing it, she knew that nothing but having the ruby necklace back in his possession would satisfy him. Her heart squeezed again as her thoughts turned to her brother.

  While she yearned to have him back, she couldn’t avoid the alarming, wrenching knowledge that it would be at the cost of never seeing Xandro again. Why that inevitability troubled her so much kept her on the sofa, her thoughts and her heart taking turns to twist and dip until Xandro appeared in the doorway half an hour later.

  Unashamedly naked, he leaned in the doorway, spearing her with incisive eyes. ‘You’re still overthinking it,’ he said after a long pause.

  Then, in silent command, he held out his hand. And she, knowing she wasn’t ready to be free of his superb brand of lovemaking, rose and slid her hand into his.

  Just a few more hours, she promised herself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BUT HOURS TURNED into one day. Then two more. Wickedly glorious days when he bossily informed her he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to be with her and cajoled her into doing the same. Where he indulged her in a breathtaking private helicopter trip over the Grand Canyon, and a private jet ride to a candlelit dinner for two at an exclusive vineyard in Napa Valley.

  With no paparazzi in sight, the occasions felt different. Almost...special. Enough for the fear that she was getting carried away to recede when, under a canopy of stars and the dance of fireflies, he filled her in on more stories about his past, about his mother and grandparents and their love for music. The discovery that he shared that same passion, that perhaps she’d been wrong in assuming Hunter’s had just been a means to an end for him, tugged at something deep and sacred within her.