Page 26 of Promoted to the Greek's Wife

‘There’s a cold meal and snacks prepared for us, but she’s happy to come back and cook us a hot meal if we want,’ Ari told her smoothly.

‘Cold will be fine,’ Cleo responded, strolling into an airy reception room with a glorious view of the sea and the surrounding hills. ‘I wasn’t expecting something so contemporary.’

‘I had it renovated a couple of years ago,’ Ari retorted. ‘My father rarely came here, and he signed the island over to me on my twenty-fifth birthday.’

‘We need to talk about our difference of opinion,’ Cleo told him quietly.

‘No, we don’t. Let it go,’ Ari countered curtly.

‘That’s not how I operate,’ Cleo said apologetically. ‘I want you just to picture another scenario. Imagine if I had invited allmypast lovers to attend our wedding—’

Ari actually rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s be real. You haven’thadany other lovers,’ he pointed out very drily.

Cleo’s blue eyes blazed like sapphire bolts. ‘That’s not relevant,’ she sliced back at him with hot cheeks. ‘You can still use your imagination to picture how you would have felt had I paraded my past lovers in front ofyou.’

‘I did not parade—’

‘You did,’ Cleo cut in. ‘You invited a lot of women, who were not well-wishers and who spent our entire wedding loudly speculating about why on earth you had married someone as ordinary as me. I found it offensive. You didn’t think about my feelings and you should’ve done.’

‘I—’

‘No, don’t you say that it wouldn’t have bothered you if I’d trailed a load of exes in front of you,’ Cleo protested. ‘You didn’t like me spending time with Liam, even though you knew I’d no interest in him.’

‘I’m possessive...about you,’ Ari added jerkily, because it wasn’t the norm for him and he didn’t like admitting it. He didn’t get attached to women, although he had to confess to having somehow become somewhat attached to Cleo, he allowed grudgingly. When it came to emotions, having grown up in a family where emotion was not freely expressed or shown, Ari had learned to conceal his feelings. That had become his default setting in every situation, he recognised belatedly.

Cleo curved a small hand over his arm. ‘I’m possessive too...’

Ari breathed in deep and looked out to sea as the sun sank in a blaze of glorious colour. Peach, gold and scarlet rays radiated out into the darkening sky. Slowly the fierce knot of tension inside him eased. He got her point. He remembered how flirtatious some of those women had been, the inviting glances and touches, the hints that they would still be available were he to get bored, and he was suddenly amazed at how thoughtless he had been. Cleo, he recognised then, operated on an entirely different mental wavelength from him.

‘I assumed it wouldn’t matter to you because you were my wife, which gives you an unassailable role in my life that no other woman has ever come close to achieving,’ he admitted. ‘But perhaps that was arrogant...and I was careless and unkind.’

‘Or perhaps I lack sufficient confidence to see myself in that lofty light,’ Cleo allowed thoughtfully. ‘But you do need to consider your attitudes before Lucy grows up.’

‘Lecture over yet?’ His mouth quirking, Ari gazed down at her, his extraordinary tawny eyes gleaming pure mesmeric gold in the light of the sunset over the bay. ‘You’re already trying to change me.’

‘Polish up the rough edges a bit,’ Cleo contradicted softly. ‘Notchange you. You’re not used to considering other people’s feelings. It’s not that you’re rude. You’re—’

‘I get it,’ Ari interposed before she could expand more on the topic. ‘Now can we eat something? That crack about sultans and harems killed my appetite earlier.’

‘Show me the kitchen,’ Cleo told him with a relieved grin that lit up her delicate face like sunshine.

For a split second, Ari wanted to grab her, flatten her to the nearest horizontal surface or plaster her up against a wall and sink into the warm, wet heat of her curvy, sexy little body, but that kind of impetuosity could be deemed inconsiderate, he calculated, and he desisted from that libidinous urge with the greatest difficulty.

‘I have quite a hot temper,’ he muttered between bites of the snacks she piled in front of him. ‘But I didn’t want to argue with you on our wedding day or say anything that might upset you more.’

‘So instead you simmered like a cauldron of oil on a fire and went silent on me. Good to know,’ Cleo teased.

Ari snaked out a long arm and drew her between his spread thighs. ‘Mrs Stefanos, you are sassy.’

Her blue eyes danced. ‘You’re only just noticing?’

He leant forward and claimed her parted lips with unashamed hunger. ‘Last night, I would’ve killed to have you here with me.’ He breathed that frank admission rawly.

‘Last night,’ Cleo whispered, drinking in the warm, wonderfully familiar scent of him like an addict as her hands wound round his neck, ‘I said no when I really wanted to say yes...’

With a growl of response, Ari vaulted upright and grabbed her hand to lead her into the hall. ‘Time to give you a tour of the upstairs.’

A wicked little spark of anticipation curled low in her pelvis.

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