‘Exactly.’ Now, at last, she was getting it. Thanasis might not be able to tell her the truth but he could damn well open her mind to the possibility that everything she’d been told about her missing memories could all be lies. Open her mind so when he revealed the truth on their wedding night, the shock would be absorbed.
‘But if you keep putting me at arm’s length, how am I ever going to get to know the real you and know if my feelings are true or not?’ she said, a glint of stubborn knowing in her eyes. ‘Because, let’s face it, my memories might never come back.’
Lucie laughed to see the frustration flash on Thanasis’s gorgeous face.
Once she’d got over her shock at his declaration that the most thrilling moment of her life was something that should never have happened, she’d realised nothing had changed and that he was still trying to protect her from both himself and herself.
Well, no more. She’d spent days trying to be compliant and behaving in a way she’d been told was for the best because of her head wound, and now it was time to take back control and narrate her own story rather than let others dictate it for her, and that included Adonis’s sexier replacement.
Reaching for Thanasis’s hand, marvelling at the power contained in it, she pulled it to her mouth and rubbed his fingers against her lips. ‘See?’ she said, gleefully gazing into a stare she could see fighting to put the shutters back down. ‘Whatever my memory issues, I still have free will, and I had free will when I kissed you, just as you had free will when you kissed me back and free will when you pulled away. We both know I will marry you whatever happens, so stop treating me with kid gloves. I promise you, I’m unbreakable.’
Jaw clenched tightly, he pulled his hand away. ‘No one is unbreakable.’
‘I made it through my childhood in one piece and with a hide built of rhino skin. Trust me, there is nothing you or anyone can do to hurt me on anything more than a superficial level, so gloves off and mask off—I want to know the real Thanasis Antoniadis and make up my own mind about the man he is and let my feelings develop in the organic way he suggested just twenty minutes ago.’
That had him, she thought with yet more glee thatmightbe an effect of the giddiness of his kisses still streaming in her veins ormightbe due to finally snookering him with his own words.
Not allowing him time to interject, Lucie pointed in the distance to where the early morning sun was rising in an arc between the V created by two mountains directly in their line of vision. It was as if a straight line had been created from balcony to V, sweeping over the roof of the chapel for good measure. ‘First question. Is it coincidence that this section of balcony is completely aligned with the rising sun?’ She laughed at his disbelieving expression. ‘I want to knowyou, Thanasis. Everything about you. So get talking.’
Sometimes, Thanasis thought, a man had to know when he was beaten, and there was no doubt in his mind that on this occasion Lucie had outplayed him with nothing more than a twisting of his words.
The quick brain that never missed a trick was back in full functioning order, but this wasn’t the confrontational Lucie he’d spent two months despising. This was a different Lucie. This was the Lucie he’d spent all those long weeks determined not to know.
He hadn’t wanted to know her.
For all that she’d given as good as she’d got,he’dbeen the instigator of the war that had erupted between them. It had all been him.
But that was then and now everything had changed.
He could do nothing to change what had already passed but he could play along and give Lucie the chance his determination to hate her had meant he’d refused to give her before. Get to know the real Lucie Burton and not the warped picture he’d pre-painted in his head, a painting made with all the wrong colours and strokes. Now it was time to allow her real colours to shine through.
As painful as it was to admit, he owed her that much.
His mind set, he filled his lungs with clean Sephone air and met the expectant, sparkling black eyes. ‘Even though you have presented me with a closed question, I will enter the spirit of the game as the game was intended and give a full answer.’
She gave a full wattage beam.
‘The villa was designed with the rise and fall of the sun in mind. You have to get up early to see it, but when the sun first rises, the only light on the island comes from between those two mountains.’
‘So my balcony and the balcony on the other side of your room must face west, then?’
He nodded. ‘When the sun sets, our vantage point gives the illusion that it is melting into the sea.’
‘Okay, but whose idea was it to capture both the sunrise and sunset in the villa’s design? Yours or Thomas’s?’
‘Mine.’
‘Now we’re talking.’
He narrowed his eyes in question.
She rose onto her tiptoes and tapped the end of his nose. ‘It means that you appreciate the wonders of the world.’
His chest filling at the teasing but affectionate gesture, Thanasis took a step back.
While he was willing to play along with Lucie’s wish to get to know him better, and knew it was only fair that he should get to know the real Lucie better too, he could not in all good conscience allow himself to play along with the role of her lover. Not now. Not with the taste of her still alive on his tongue and the heavy weight of desire still so thick in his loins. It had taken more strength than he’d known he possessed to pull away from her, and he couldn’t be certain he would find that same strength again, not when she was so warm and passionate and willing and…
He snatched a breath.
