SOFIA COULDN’T STOP SHAKING, even as she took a second step and a third into the small beautiful wooden summer house. She knew it wasn’t just because of the rain. She had never told anyone about her father. No one outside her mother, or her father’s carers. She had put her trust in Theo. And it had been terrifying, but she wouldn’t take it back. Not for a second.
She had seen him war with the truth of her words, with what it had meant for them all those years ago, and possibly even what it meant for them now. But she didn’t want to think about her father, or Iondorra. No. Now she wanted to lose herself, or find herself, she couldn’t say.
She turned to see Theo standing in the glass-fronted doorway, the fierce sky pouring rain down on the vineyard, casting everything else in dull grey, but Theo in full, bright glory. He looked like an avenging angel, dark hair even blacker than the night, his clothes drenched and clinging to the dips and hollows of his body as if he were a thing to be worshipped.
As he stalked towards her she fought the instinct to step back. She wouldn’t hide from this any more, hide from her desire, she was now focused on him completely, the one man, the only man she’d ever wanted. The only man who had seen her for who she truly was, before duty had moulded her into something new. Something other.
They reached for each other at the same time, colliding in need and passion and want. She felt the beat of her heart leap as his lips crashed against hers, as his hands cradled her head, angling her in a position that felt as much like surrender as it did defiance. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, filling her, consuming her, and she needed it. It was too much. She felt like laughing, like crying, as if she simply didn’t know which way was up or down any more, all she knew was him.
Her hands flew to his shoulders, large, solid, bigger than the breadth of her hands. Her nails dug into the thin, wet material covering his body and she wanted to feel skin, needed to. Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt, but the tremors shaking her body made her actions too slow.
He released his hold on her, and she swayed from the loss, the support, the anchor of his body. She watched as he tore apart his shirt, buttons flying and scattering on the wooden floor, marvelling at the smooth planes of his chest, the soft whorls of damp hair clinging to a deeply tanned torso. As he reached for her she gazed, fascinated by the cords of muscles rippling from the movement, and reached out a hand tentatively. She wanted to touch, needed to, but...
He swept up her hand in his and placed it on his chest, on his heart, and looked at her with such intensity she could hardly bear the weight of it. She felt the beat of his heart, powerful, strong and fast, raging in time with her own. His skin was hot beneath her cool palms and she shuddered, wanting to feel that heat wrapped around her, fill her, warm the places of her that had been left cold the moment she left him standing at the boarding school all those years ago.
It was then that she knew what it felt like to be in the eye of the storm—the moment of shocking quiet stillness while chaos raged around them. The moment that life as she knew it would change. She knew that he was giving her this. This moment to walk away. To stop. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t.
She reached for him then, raising to her tiptoes to reach that proud, utterly sensual mouth of his, desperate to feel it against her own. Her hands explored his rain-slicked skin, delighting in the feel of his strength, his power. His hands cupped her backside and he lifted her off her feet, her legs wrapping round his lean waist as if they’d always been meant to be there.
He backed up and sat them down on the large summer lounger, her knees anchoring against his hips, as he pulled at her silk top, freeing it from the waistband of her trousers, pulling it over her head and tossing it aside, snagging on the pins that held her hair in place and pulling it free as her long blonde hair hung down in thick, wet ropes about her shoulders. He stopped then and stared.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, placing open-mouthed kisses along her neck as she shivered under the feel of his tongue on her skin. His hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing her nipples, stiff with pleasure, and Sofia’s head fell back, relishing the feel of him, of what he was doing to her body, as he honoured her with his touch.
She gasped when he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked, teasing her with his tongue, his arm around her waist holding her in place against the onslaught of desire that threatened to overwhelm her.
Unconsciously she rocked against his lap, the hard ridge of his arousal at her core making her slick with need as much as the groan that fell from Theo’s lips.
‘You’re killing me here,’ he said, the words half huffed out on a laugh.
He pulled back, looking at her, his gaze taking its fill of her. He reached behind her, and began to unbuckle her sandals, first one, then the other. He took her foot in one hand and firmly pressed the entire length of the arch of each foot, sending delight and pleasure through her. He caressed her ankles beneath the wet linen of her trousers, encased her calf in powerful, calloused hands, rough against smooth, sensations overwhelming her. She moaned out loud and he cursed, wrapping one strong arm around her as he twisted them in an embrace and turned her back to the seat.
Her fingers fought against his to undo the button of her trousers, and, once done, he peeled them from her, slowly, languorously as if enjoying the unveiling as much as anything else. She couldn’t find the words to describe him. He was glorious. Shirtless, his chest was magnificent, and she watched with the same delight as he kicked off his shoes and removed his trousers without taking his eyes from hers once. She almost shook her head against the impossibility of seeing him standing there naked, proud, and every inch her fantasy. She began to tremble again, not with cold, not from the elements, but from the sheer virility that was Theo, the magnetism, just him.
Theo stood naked before the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. There she was, laid out before him like the last meal he’d ever taste, and he hovered on the brink of something indefinable, as if he didn’t know where to start.
He wrapped a hand around her ankle and gently pulled her so that she almost lay flat. He lifted her foot, pressed kisses against the delicate arch, the inside of her ankle, he made his way slowly, languorously along her calf, spreading her slightly to allow the space for his own body, as he trailed open-mouthed kisses over her thigh and upwards to the hollow at her hip. Her body quivered beneath his lips, and he dusted the gentle swell of her stomach with his tongue. He kissed over her ribcage, and bit back a smile as she twisted and bucked as if as overwrought by the pleasure they built between them as he was. He kissed between her perfect breasts as he moulded them with his hands, each kiss driving him closer to the brink of need and desperation. This wasn’t the angry coupling from the other night, this was honour, and respect, and desire building pathways to his heart that he’d never imagined.
He wanted to give her the greatest pleasure, as if he could make up for the ills he had thought her guilty of, the ills he had almost wreaked upon her. Because he realised now that he could not go through with his plan...he could no longer leave her at the altar humiliated and abandoned. Because beneath the ache and sting of what he had felt for Sofia was something deeper, darker and something he did not yet want to face.
She reached for him, as if pulling him back to the present, pulling him back to her, and he was more than willing to take the comfort she offered, even as he realised that it should have been the other way round. After what she had told him, it should be him soothing her hurts.
Leaning on his forearm, he looked down at her, the damp golden ropes of her hair framing her face, the exquisite perfection of it, and the way her head cocked to one side elongated her neck made him yearn to devour her there, the pulse point, the connection to life, the flutter there speaking of her need for him.
Wide, round, azure-blue eyes stared up at him in complete trust, and part of him wanted to shy away from that gaze, from the hope and innocence within it. Instead he followed the trail of his hands with his eyes as his fingers traced the outline of her ribcage, the pad of his thumb dipping into the hollow at her hip, his hand delving beneath her, curving around her backside to pull her against him, their centres flush, their cores both throbbing with need, and he released her only to sweep his hand low across the gentle swell of her abdomen and between her legs to find the place that drove her wild with ecstasy.
His thumb caressed and played with her clitoris, the sounds of her need rising higher than the pounding of the rain against the wooden roof of the gazebo, ringing vibrations over his skin through to his very soul. This time he would not tease her, keeping her at the brink of an orgasm. No, he would drench her in as much pleasure as she could take, and then more.
He thrust into her with his fingers, feeling the walls of her body clench around them, again and again, all the while his body aching with need, an ache he felt he deserved to bear even though it was Sofia that cried out, Sofia’s body that trembled beneath him, incomprehensible words begging and pleading falling from her perfect lips. He wanted to kiss them, to consume them with his own mouth, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop watching how beautiful she was when she came apart in his arms.
It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Sofia’s body, still vibrating with the power of the orgasm Theo had pulled from her very soul, still wanted more. It wanted him and wouldn’t be denied. Her hands reached for him, drawing him down upon her, and finally, as if they were puzzle pieces fitting together, she felt some kind of completion as he placed the tip of himself at her core, and as he thrust into her deeply she felt stripped bare, vulnerable and powerful at the same time, as if she had stolen something from him to bolster her own sense of self.
The thickness of him filled her completely, the smooth hardness within her she was afraid she was already addicted to. He reached beneath her, bringing their bodies to a place where he could drive into her with more power, more delicious friction, just more... And she gasped, the air almost lodging in her throat, her heart as they became joined at the deepest, closest part of themselves. Was this what she had turned away from all those years ago? This impossible to describe sense of rightness, sense of wholeness? It was the last thought she had as he drove her closer and closer to a second orgasm—and with no need for silence or discretion, with no need for secrecy she cried out her release into his mouth as his lips came down on hers with the same desperation, the same craving that she could no longer resist.
Walking back through the vineyards as the sun hung low in the sky, slashes of pink against the cornflower-blue creating a stunning sight, Sofia wondered at the warmth and safety she felt as Theo wound his arm around her waist, holding her to his side. Their clothes still damp from the rain storm that had caught them by surprise, she almost welcomed the rough feeling, knowing what pleasures it had led to. She knew that they would have to return to Iondorra tomorrow for the charity gala, which—even though only a week before their wedding—she wouldn’t have cancelled for the world. Her role as patron for Gardes des Enfants d’Iondorra—a charity that supported child carers—had given her the first glimpse she’d had that her royal status could be a positive thing—could help and support something both wider and yet smaller and more immediate than anything her ‘duties’ could effect.
But for the first time she was torn. Torn between her duty and wanting to stay here in this magical bubble where the outside world didn’t exist and where she and Theo were finally feeling as one, feeling right, as if this was how it should have been all along.
She laughed out loud, then, when she felt the gentle vibrations at her side from the phone in Theo’s pocket—both at the feeling, and the contradiction of her thoughts of it just being the two of them cut off from the rest of the world. But when Theo joined in her breath caught—she had forgotten what he had looked like when he smiled, when they laughed together, and the sight was...incredible, full of hope for the future and the pull of nostalgia from the past.
‘Nai?’ he said, still laughing as he answered the phone.
Trying not to feel a little stab of hurt when he pulled away from her to speak into his phone, she forced herself to tune out the conversation and turned her mind to tomorrow...to the future. With him? Married to Theo Tersi? After all that had happened to them years ago, and since?
Unconsciously she had walked forward, tracing her steps back towards the stunning hotel hidden amongst the rows and rows of grapevines that stretched as far as she could see. The little narrow lanes created between them were barely enough for one person to step along.
She felt Theo behind her, the heat of him, the awareness...
‘That was my mother,’ he announced, disconnecting the phone.
‘Oh?’ She’d hoped her word sounded nonchalant rather than...what, worried? Intrigued? How much did his mother know about what had happened between them? What on earth must she think of her?
‘She has invited us for dinner this evening. If that’s okay?’
Sofia pulled every one of her concerns beneath the well-worn mask she used almost daily for her royal duties. ‘Of course that’s okay. I would love to meet her,’ she said genuinely, all the while hoping that Theo’s mother didn’t hate her quite as much as she hated herself for what she had done to Theo all those years ago.
Theo had never, ever introduced his mother to anyone he had been intimately involved with. He knew that she refused to read the articles written about him in the last two years, and only now did he realise how ashamed he felt of them. Ten years ago, he had intended to bring Sofia to his mother and...what? It was only now that he was beginning to realise that what Sofia had said on the boat was true. That what they had shared at school had been the stuff of fantasies and impossible dreams. Had she perhaps not been a princess it might have been different, but even then, Theo wasn’t quite sure.
He almost laughed, bitterly, at the thinly fabricated future they had concocted in their minds. Even had she not been a princess, even with the scholarships, the reality was that he would have had to take one, maybe two jobs to pay for living expenses. He would have struggled just as much as he had in reality, but with her by his side. He would have spent hours, days away from her, and possibly in the end either resented that he wouldn’t have been able to provide the life he had wanted for her, or, worse, her. And she? Would have been ruined by the hard life he would have taken them to. And he couldn’t shake this feeling that perhaps what had happened was how it had been meant to be. That the very reason he’d been able to achieve such impossible success was the drive and determination that had fuelled him all these years. These thoughts struck a cruel blow as they reached the door to the small house on the border of his land.
He’d tried so many times to entice his mother to a grander home, an easier home perhaps on one floor, with cleaners, and staff even, but she had refused, loving the little home that they had first shared when he’d initially bought this land.
Before he could even raise his hand to the door, it swung open and he was instantly enveloped by his mother’s small frame and a stream of adoring, loving Greek spoken so quickly, even he only picked up on half the words. Within seconds both he and Sofia were being practically dragged over the threshold, straight into the small kitchen full of smells that instantly made his mouth water, and heart lurch with memories of the past.
He looked at Sofia standing in his mother’s kitchen—a smile one of her biggest and brightest as she stood there in a pretty summer’s dress. She had told him, every inch the royal, that she refused to meet his mother in wet clothes, and they had returned to the rooms in the hotel to shower and change before coming here. But now—with no trace of any etiquette, no royal greeting on his mother’s behalf, simply welcomed through the door and into the kitchen, Sofia seemed happier than she had in all the days he’d spent with her.
Aggeliki was tactile, even for a Greek mother, and he marvelled at how Sofia—usually protected by a dozen bodyguards from anything even close to physical contact—was taking all the touching and hugging. His mother was asking her about how she liked the vineyard, and he was about to translate, when Sofia, along with a surprising amount of gesturing, managed to explain that she liked it very much. In Greek. When had she learned Greek? he wondered. She was doing fairly well, but every now and then had to defer to him for the translation of a few words, and after he’d warned his mother to slow down they seemed to be able to understand much of what was said between them. Their evening became a strange mix of Greek, English and the occasional French, when even English wouldn’t do.
They sat outside at a wooden table beneath a pergola almost buckling under the weight of the stunning bougainvillea they had planted when they had first bought the land. Aggeliki had lit citronella candles the moment she had seen Sofia’s pale skin, knowing that the mosquitos would love nothing more than to feast on the perfect blood in her veins, and the lemony scent hung in the warm night air as they feasted on the numerous dishes Theo’s mother had produced.
He watched his mother and Sofia, heads bent together almost conspiratorially, and realised that he could not go through with his plan for revenge. He had told Aggeliki that he was to be married, but had refused to sink so low in his mother’s expectations as to admit the truth behind his actions. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of rightness as he watched the two women together, forging a relationship in the way he’d once imagined ten years ago.
He hadn’t missed the way that Sofia had been nervous about meeting his mother, but hadn’t managed to reassure her that she didn’t have to worry, that he’d never revealed the source of his shame. Because he’d been so consumed by the way the blame he’d laid at her feet—which had once been on such on solid ground—was now shifting.
Sofia sat back in her chair, more full of food than she could ever remember being in her entire life. She had tried to help Theo’s mother take the plates away, but she had shooed her with hand gestures, firmly keeping her in the seat, and Sofia had reluctantly stifled her manners.
For just a moment it was her and Theo, his brooding gaze on her, glimmering in the darkness—the thin shadows cast by the little citronella candles enough to create warmth but not quite illumination. Not that she needed it. She knew every millimetre of his face, his features etched in her heart for ever ten years before—she’d only had to let herself remember them. For one moment, barely the space of a heartbeat, there was peace between them. Peace and something she’d dare not put a name to. Because if she lost it again, she didn’t think she’d survive.
Aggeliki returned to the table with even more food, this time the scent of sweetness hitting Sofia hard and making her mouth water.
She laughed, ‘What is all this?’
‘This is dessert!’ Theo’s mother proudly claimed as she put down the tray covered with enough sweet treats to feed an army. She also noticed on the tray a small plate with a number of pills and frowned as she watched Aggeliki take them with a mouthful of water in between each one. She raised a brow at Theo, who had yet to take his eyes from his mother, now swallowing down the last one, but Aggeliki must have caught the look.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, rubbing warmth into Sofia’s cold hand. ‘It’s nothing. I am fine,’ she said with smiling reassurance, but it did nothing to ease the concern building in Sofia’s chest.
‘My mother...she had a heart attack and was treated and is now—as she says—better than ever.’ Sofia didn’t call him on the brief pause that spoke of his own concern, instead focusing on what she needed to know.
‘When?’
Theo shrugged and shook his head. But she wouldn’t let it go that easily.
‘When did it happen?’ she asked, purposefully gentling her tone.
‘Five years ago,’ he said, refusing to meet her gaze.
Something cold and hard twisted in her chest and ached for him, for his mother, for her own selfish actions. From what he had told her earlier in the vineyard, he’d barely won his first vintner’s award. He may have had some success at that point, and she didn’t know much about the Greek healthcare system, but knew enough. Enough that meant it would have nearly crippled them financially, especially with a fledgling business underway, not to mention the hard work and struggle that it must have taken to be torn between a sick parent and full-time duty. Yes. She knew enough about that to know what it must have cost him.
She searched her mind for the words that would explain how she felt, how truly sorry she was, but they wouldn’t come. They didn’t have to. Finally Theo met her gaze and she knew that what he saw in her eyes was enough. He nodded, as if he’d understood, all the while his mother explaining the different types of dessert she wanted Sofia to try. And, as full as she was, Sofia would take a bit of each and every one of them.
This time, when it came to clearing the table, she ignored Aggeliki and helped the woman back into the small kitchen with the empty plates and coffee cups from the end of their meal. She liked this small room, how homely it felt, how easy it was just to prepare a meal and eat—rather than the impersonal feeling of a meal served to her each and every night, alone in a dining room big enough to seat twenty. Usually she brought her laptop, immersed herself in work to avoid the stark realisation that she was alone, that her mother and father had retreated to another estate far away from the palace. There was no laughter, as there had been this night, no gentle teasing or recounting of family stories, or praise of Theo’s successes...and it hurt in a way she had never allowed herself to feel before.
As she glanced around the beautiful little kitchen, her eyes caught on an old black and white photo of Aggeliki and a man standing beside each other, with easy smiles and laughter in their eyes.
‘Oh,’ she gasped, moving towards it. ‘This is such a beautiful picture of you, Aggeliki. Is this Theo’s father?’
It was as if the temperature in the room had dropped.
‘No. It is Nikos. We don’t speak of my father. Ever.’
The words were in English, and even though she didn’t think Aggeliki had translated them in her mind, Theo’s reaction couldn’t have been more clear. Especially when he retrieved his phone and left the kitchen.
She felt Aggeliki rub her arm softly and smile.
‘It wasn’t you,’ she said in Greek. ‘He doesn’t...’ She shook her head sadly, as if trying to find the words. ‘He never got over it. The way his father left. I tried...to give him everything, to be everything for him. But,’ she said with a shrug of her shoulder, ‘he is a man. A man needs a father. For a while in Switzerland...’ Sofia didn’t need Aggeliki to fill in the gap—clearly her boss, the man who had paid for Theo’s education, had been a father figure to him. ‘But look at him now,’ she said, calling Sofia back to the present, to look at him through the window. ‘And look at what you both have. It is a joy to me, Sofia. Efcharistó.’
For the first time since they had arrived, Sofia began to wish that she hadn’t come. That she hadn’t seen the pain and the struggle that Theo had been through since he had been expelled from the boarding school. Because finally Theo had got his wish. She was learning about the consequences of her actions.