Towel hung loose around his waist, he strolled into his dressing room and soon he was dressed in smart dark chinos and a black shirt he left unbuttoned at the throat.
He could have kissed Leander for arriving early and for his invitation to join them that evening. It meant he got the pleasure of Lucie’s company without the torture of being alone with her. He might even allow himself a drink, something he hadn’t dared since her first night here when the wine had lowered his defences and set this whole damn ball of the Lucie rollercoaster rolling.
If he was being truthful, that ball had been rolling since she’d screeched away from him in his Porsche. Maybe even since she’d bounced into that hotel bar.
The coldness he’d experienced when told she’d been in an accident should have been the warning shot he’d needed that his feelings for her ran much deeper than basic lust.
Too late now, he thought grimly, and then shook the grimness off. His attitude had ruined too many evenings for Lucie before, even if she didn’t remember them. This one he would make special for her. After all, come the morning, the wedding madness would start in earnest. Lucie’s bridesmaids would arrive, as would Thanasis’s groomsmen, and, as a sop to the old English tradition, he and Lucie would go their separate ways and avoid each other until the wedding itself, one of the many details planned to fool the world into believing that this marriage was real.
He would not allow himself to think tonight of how much he now wanted it to be real too. He didn’t dare, not when the confession he must make hung like a dark cloud over him.
A little wax in his hair and a dab of his cologne and he was good to go.
He knocked on her door.
Within moments his senses were engulfed with the scent that most drove him wild…and then he saw her standing there.
A whistle he had no control of escaped through his teeth.
Her teeth grazed her bottom lip and she gave the shy smile he hadn’t seen since her first night on his island. ‘Well? Will I do?’
Do?
All the good his day away from her had done him had evaporated. All the fortifications he’d built in his mind to get through the next few days…vanquished.
Her usual black attire was gone. In its place, a sheer jade wrap dress with spaghetti straps that plunged between her breasts and tied at the waist, heavy jade embroidery threading in a leafy pattern from the breasts and down to the loose hemline below her knees. It was sexy and tantalising without being revealing, and had the touch of bohemian to it that only Lucie could pull off. Only Lucie could pull off the curly black pineapple on her head too, but even thinking of it as that was to do it an injustice when the soft curls framed her face and enhanced her beauty and the beauty of the deep red pear drop earrings in a way that was, to his eyes, a work of art. A tendril had come loose by her left ear, a long ringlet that brushed against her shoulder and filled him with envy that it wasn’t his mouth brushing against that silken skin.
He fought the groan drawing up his throat and clenched his fists to stop them cupping those beautiful cheeks and pulling that beautiful face to him.
Thrumming in him was the deep certainty that should he kiss the delectable mouth painted a tantalising deep dusky colour that was neither pink nor red but, like everything else with this incredible woman, uniquely Lucie, he would never come up for air again.
‘Well?’ There was a touch of anxiety in her stare.
He blew out a long breath. ‘You look beautiful. Youarebeautiful.’
Her smile would have blown out any air he had left in him.
Only when she stepped closer did he realise she was wearing red heels that lifted her height enough that she didn’t have to crane her neck all the way back to look in his eyes.
The hand that touched his cheeks contained a tremor in it. ‘You’ve shaved.’
He caught the hand and, fool that he was, pressed it tighter to his skin. ‘Do you approve?’
Another smile. ‘You always look gorgeous.’
Incapable of releasing her hand, he lowered it and threaded his fingers through hers, then brought it to his mouth to kiss the delicate tips. ‘Truly,matia mou. You are ravishing.’ He laughed to release the tension tight in his chest. ‘I’d assumed you only owned black clothes.’
‘I’ve not worn this for you before?’
‘No.’ He’d never seen her wear anything like it. For their public dates together she’d always looked beautiful—hell, she always looked beautiful, whatever the time of day and whatever she was wearing—but this was the first time he’d ever felt that she’d dressed with him in mind.
‘Good. Obviously I don’t remember, but I didn’t think I could have. I’ve no memory of buying it.’
When he thought of all the big memories her amnesia had taken from her, there was no reason why her failure to remember buying one dress should make him feel so wretched.
He gently fingered the loose ringlet and inhaled through his nose, filling his senses with the scent that was a manifestation of his addiction to her. ‘Once the wedding is done with, I will do everything in my power to help your memories come back to you. I swear.’
The Aphrodite smile shone up at him.
