Ethan's Temptress Bride. Michelle Reid
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man, Jack.’ She thought she heard him mutter over the splash of water, but she couldn’t be sure.
‘I laughed because I thought it was so funny,’ she went on. ‘I mean—we both know you’re too much the English gentleman to do anything so crass as to love them and leave them without a backward glance.’
It was not a compliment and Ethan didn’t take it as one. ‘You keep taking a dig at my Englishness, but you’re half English yourself,’ he pointed out.
‘I know.’ Eve sighed with mocking tragedy. ‘It worries the Greek in me sometimes that I could end up falling for a die-hard English stuffed-shirt.’
‘Fate worse than death.’
‘Yes.’
He switched the shower off again and Eve rediscovered her fascination with his body as he turned to recover his wet tee shirt; muscles wrapped in rich brown flesh rippled in the red glow of the sunlight, droplets of water clung to the hairs on his chest.
Ethan turned to catch her staring. The prickling sensation between his thighs warned him that he had better get away from here before he embarrassed himself again. Yet he didn’t move, couldn’t seem to manage the simple act. His senses were too busy drinking in what his eyes were showing him. He liked the way she was wearing her hair twisted cheekily up on her head with a hibiscus flower helping to hold it in place. He liked what the pink dress did for her figure and the slender length and shape of her legs. And he liked her mouth; it was heart-shaped—small with a natural provocative yen to pout. He liked her smooth golden skin, her cute little nose, and those eyes that had a way of looking at him as if she…
Go away, Eve, he wanted to say to her. Instead he dragged his eyes away, and looked for something thoroughly innocuous to say. ‘I thought you were all off to a party this evening.’ Flat-voiced, level-toned, he’d thought he’d hit innocuous perfectly.
But Eve clearly didn’t. She stiffened up as if he had just insulted her. ‘Oh, do let’s be honest and call it an orgy,’ she returned. ‘Since you believe that orgies are more my style.’
Time to go, he decided, and opened the picket gate.
‘While you do what you’re probably very good at, of course,’ she added, ‘and play whist with the cheese and wine set at the hotel.’
He went still.
Eve’s heart stopped beating on the suspicion that she had finally managed to rouse the sleeping tiger she’d always fancied lurked within his big chest. Sometimes—usually when she was least expecting it—Ethan Hayes could take on a certain quality that made her think of dangerous animals. This was one of those times, and her biggest problem was that she liked it—it excited her.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
He knew exactly how old she was. ‘Twenty-three until midnight,’ she told him anyway.
He nodded his wet head. ‘That accounts for it.’
This was blatant baiting, Eve recognised, and foolishly took it. ‘Accounts for what?’
‘The annoyingly adolescent desire to insult and shock.’
He was so right, but oh, it hurt. Why had she willingly let herself fall into that? Eve had no defence, none at all and she had to turn to stare out to sea so that he wouldn’t see the sudden flood of weak tears that were trying to fill her eyes.
And who was the adolescent who made that cutting comment? Ethan was grimly asking himself, as he looked at her standing there looking like an exotic flower that had been cut down in its prime. Oh, damn it, he thought, and walked through the gate, meaning to get the hell away from this before he—
He couldn’t do it. Muscles were tightening all over his body on wave after wave of angry guilt. What had she ever done to him after all? If you didn’t count a couple of teasing come-ons and letting him catch her in a heated clinch with someone else’s man.
She’d also caught him naked and had had a full view of his embarrassing response, but he didn’t want to think about that. Instead he took in a deep breath and spun back to say something trite and stupid and hopefully less—
But he found he was too late because she had already walked off, a tall slender figure with a graceful stride and a proud yet oddly vulnerable tilt to her head. Still cursing himself for the whole stupid conversation, Ethan made himself walk up the path. Though, as he reached the shade of the veranda, he couldn’t resist a quick glance sideways and saw Eve was about to enter her house. One part of him wanted to go after her and apologise, but the major part told him wisely to leave well alone.
Eve Herakleides could mean trouble if he allowed himself to be sucked in by her frankly magnetic appeal. He didn’t need that kind of stimulation. He didn’t want to end up in the same fated boat he had been in before with a woman just like her.
What was it that Jack had called it? ‘Lusting after the unattainable.’ Eve was destined to higher things than a mere architect had to offer—as her grandfather would be happy to tell him. But it was the word lust that made Ethan go inside and firmly close his door.
CHAPTER THREE
EVE tried to enjoy the party. In fact she threw herself into the role of life and soul with an enthusiasm that kept everyone else entertained.
But the scene with Ethan Hayes had taken the edge off her desire to enjoy anything tonight. And she was worried about Aidan. He had been drinking steadily since he’d arrived at the bar on the beach late this afternoon and his mood suited the grim compulsion with which he was pouring the rum down his throat.
Not that anyone else seemed to have noticed, she realised, as she watched him do his party trick with a cocktail shaker and bottle of something very green to the laughing encouragement of the rest of the crowd, whereas she felt more like weeping.
For Aidan—for herself? In truth, she wasn’t quite sure. On that low note she surrendered to the deep doldrums that had been dogging her every movement tonight and slid open one of the glass doors that led onto the terrace. Then she stepped out into the warm dark night, intending to walk across the decking to the terrace rail that overlooked the sea—only it came as a surprise to discover that she was ever so slightly tipsy, so tipsy in fact that she was forced to sink onto the first sunbed she reached just in case she happened to fall down.
Well, why not? she thought with a little shrug, and slipping off her shoes she lifted her feet up onto the cool, cushioned mattress, then relaxed against the raised chair back with a low long sigh. The air was soft and seductively quiet, the earlier threatened storm having passed them by. Reclining there, she listened to the low slap of lazy waves touching the shore, and wondered dully how much longer she needed to leave it before she could escape to brood on her own terrace without inviting comment here?
At least Aidan was already in the right place for when he eventually sank into a drunken stupor, she mused heavily. This was his home, or the one he liked to call home of several the family had dotted around this tiny bay. With a bit of luck he was going to slide under a convenient table soon and she could get some of the guys to put him to bed, then forget about him and his problems for a while and concentrate on her own.
She certainly had a few, Eve acknowledged through the mud of her half-tipsy state. Ethan Hayes and his horrible attitude towards her was one of them. Her grandfather in his whole, sweet, bullying entirety was another. The older he got, the more testy he became, and more determined to run her life for her. She smiled as she thought that about him though, and allowed her mind to drift back to the last conversation she’d had with him over the phone before she’d flown out here from her London flat.
‘Grandpa, will you stop trying to marry me off to every eligible man you happen to meet?’ she scolded, ‘I am only twenty-three years’ old, for goodness’ sake!’
‘At twenty-three you should be suckling my first grandson at your breast while the next grows big in your belly,’ he complained.
‘Barefoot