AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was wearing only boxer shorts. She dimly recalled hearing him get up at sunrise, quietly change his clothes and go out. When he’d returned, he’d gone to the tiny en suite and turned on the shower. Gauging by the running shoes, T-shirt and shorts left on the floor, he must have gone for a run.
What drove him? she wondered. Why did he throw his body so hard at everything, whether it was working superhuman hours or going for a long run after very few hours of sleep?
Her gaze lingered on his hard-muscled chest, following the dark line of hair down his six-pack abs to the very center of his masculine body, beneath the boxer shorts mostly hidden by the cotton sheets twisted between his sprawled, powerful legs.
“Morning.”
At Theo’s deep, lazy voice, she looked up sharply, her cheeks hot. With his arm still tossed above his head on the pillow, he gave a wicked, amused smile. He’d clearly caught her perusing his near-naked body.
“Morning.” She trembled a little, waiting for him to hold out his hand, to try to tempt her to join him in bed. Could she resist? Could she refuse?
Instead, he sat up in bed, smiling. “I’m starving. Want some breakfast?”
She smiled back, relieved. “Sure...”
Then her throat closed as he rose from the bed, giving her a full view of his powerful, nearly naked body. She saw the scarred flesh of his ankle, burned from an engine fire in a long-ago car race. She caught her breath as he bent over, giving her a view of his muscled back, the boxers straining over the powerful curve of his backside as he dug through his suitcase. Cheeks burning, she turned away, staring out the window at the sea.
“Ready.” Dressed casually in a collared linen shirt and khaki shorts, he gave her an innocent smile, even as she thought she saw a glint of wicked amusement in his eyes. And his lips curved upward at the edges—
Oh, heaven. How had her gaze fallen to his lips? She swallowed. “Ready.”
But her cheeks still felt hot as they went downstairs to share a late-morning breakfast on the taverna’s small patio at the water’s edge.
She had dressed modestly in the loose blue cotton sundress and sandals she’d bought in the village yesterday, her hair in a simple ponytail. With only sunscreen applied to her skin, she looked like a tourist and respectable married pregnant lady, she hoped, no different from any other... No one would know their honeymoon was chaste, she told herself. Biting her lip, she stared down at the huge rock on her left hand as the innkeeper spoke to Theo, beaming, clearly delighted to discover that his guest spoke fluent Greek.
Sipping her creamy decaf coffee, Emmie looked around at the other guests who’d straggled down to breakfast late. They all looked like honeymooners for sure, with a post-sex glow. One young couple, holding hands over the table, kept kissing each other when they thought no one was looking. Her heart twisted with unwelcome envy.
“I’m sorry this honeymoon is such a disappointment.” She turned to her husband wide-eyed, suddenly terrified he’d read her mind. Sipping his own black coffee, he gave her a mild smile. “With the yacht coming late.”
“I don’t mind,” she answered, relieved. “I like it here.” At the rise of his skeptical black eyebrows, she added a little defensively, “Lyra is the most beautiful, charming, friendly place I’ve ever seen.”
He glanced up as the innkeeper brought their breakfasts and departed. “If you say so.”
Taking a bite of her flaky pastry—ah, heavenly butter!—Emmie closed her eyes in bliss, mumbling, “If you don’t like Lyra, why did you bring us here on honeymoon?”
His eyes flickered. “Our honeymoon starts on the yacht.” He stabbed his eggs with his fork. “Our stop in Lyra is just an unpleasant errand I need to finish first.”
Lyra unpleasant? She nearly choked on her second pastry. Washing it down with sweet, creamy coffee, she wiped her mouth. “I’m happy here.”
“No one is happy here,” he muttered.
Did he know this island well? She frowned, trying to remember anything he might have told her about Greece when she was his secretary. But there was nothing. He’d never spoken about his past in Greece, ever. She asked bluntly, “What’s your errand?”
Theo looked at her, his jaw tight. “You deserve the honeymoon of your dreams, Emmie. You’ll have it. I promise you. You’ll be cherished in luxury on my yacht, waited on by a ten-person staff. We’ll visit Santorini, where a friend is hosting a party for us. It should be very glamorous. Then Mykonos.”
“Glamorous,” Emmie sighed.
His lips curved. “Didn’t you notice the clothes in your suitcase?”
Emmie had, to her dismay. After they’d arrived in Greece, he’d presented her with a Louis Vuitton trunk graced with her new initials, E. S. K., filled with new designer clothes that fit her pregnant body perfectly, including cocktail dresses and resort wear—obviously arranged by a stylist, at great expense. It was still in lockup at the harbor, awaiting to be loaded onto the yacht.
But she’d seen a flash of prices on the tags. A two-thousand-dollar swimsuit cover-up from Prada? Seriously? Once they were back in New York, she vowed to take it straight back to the stylist for a refund. Even if her husband was crazy rich, that didn’t mean their spending should be crazy stupid.
Especially not when, as she and Theo had wandered Lyra’s narrow cobblestone village road yesterday afternoon, she’d found swimsuit cover-ups for just ten euros and cotton sundresses for twelve, one of which she was wearing now. She looked down at her hand, twisting her diamond ring nervously. “We could skip Mykonos and Santorini and just stay in Lyra.”
“Thank you, but you don’t need to pretend. This place is a hellhole.” His jaw was tight as he looked up at the charming taverna hotel that she’d taken a million pictures of with her phone since yesterday. “I’m sorry. You deserve better.”
Her brow furrowed. Hellhole?
