Husband for the Holidays

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

E LOISE LATCHED THE DOORS , planning to change quickly, get through dinner, then get herself home where she could start searching for a job to replace the one she’d lost.

Temptation got the better of her. Maybe it was vanity. Or cowardice.

Facing Konstantin was becoming more daunting by the second, especially when she looked as bedraggled as she felt. She hated that he was seeing her at her very worst.

Not that she’d looked great at the funeral. No wonder he had pushed her away again that day.

She swept that awful memory from her mind and hurried to wash her face.

Somewhere between drying her face and getting undressed, however, she found herself starting the shower. She wanted a few minutes to pull herself together, and yes, wanted to feel the way she used to feel when her needs were abundantly met and her problems were mostly superficial.

Seconds later, she was under the soft rain of the warm water, almost moaning aloud. This shampoo . The lather was silky, the conditioner rich as melted butter. The body wash smelled of sage and agave and made her skin tingle with rejuvenation.

She could have stayed here all night, but made herself step out and bit back another groan when she realized the towels were heated. The robe she stole off the hook was luxuriously soft and smelled like the body wash, as though Konstantin had worn it against his own clean, naked skin earlier today.

Oh, why was she like this? She’d had years to find a man who interested her as much as Konstantin, but he had set an impossible bar. She kept looking for someone with his same balance of intellect, confidence, sophistication and wit coupled with raw, masculine sex appeal.

Me and every other woman on the planet , she thought dourly.

Konstantin didn’t even see her as a woman, only as his friend’s baby sister.

We’ve been alone before. Nothing happened .

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memory of finding him in the garden of her mother’s villa in Athens. The rest of the guests had gone home. She’d been tired, so tired, but the service was over, the house was empty and her mother had gone to bed.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” she had said, hovering on the final step of the stairs to the lower terrace. “It means a lot.”

Silently, she had begged him to open up in some way, to reveal he was as gutted as she was or hold her maybe, so she didn’t have to be the strong one.

He turned and came toward her, but stopped in front of her without touching her.

“You’ll call me if you need anything.” His voice was raspy, but that was the sum total of emotion he revealed.

She didn’t doubt that he was affected, though. He had to be. He had been in America when Ilias’s small plane had gone down. He’d offered to identify him and had then made all the arrangements for Ilias to come back to Athens.

“I will,” she agreed and hugged herself.

“You shouldn’t be out here without a coat.” He touched her arm. It was only protected by the sheer black sleeve of her dress.

“I don’t feel it,” she said in a dull voice. “I’m so numb I can’t even cry.”

“Don’t cry,” he commanded gruffly and stepped closer, enfolding her.

She was still on the step so the top of her head was right under his chin. She leaned into him and the sweetness of being held by this man, whom she had been alternately yearning for and cursing since last Christmas, began to break through her shell.

He was warm and strong and seemed to care, really care.

Without any conscious thought to it, she let her folded arm slide upward to curl around his neck. She stood on her tiptoes on that step and turned her face into his neck, tilting her mouth up to brush his jaw.

There was a sharp inhale as he stiffened. He looked down at her and their mouths brushed. His hands hardened on her and his mouth opened across hers in a rough claim that dragged her from a yearning for comfort into a cyclone of twisted emotions: anger and sorrow, pain and assuagement. A spike of pure, carnal hunger that jolted like lightning into her belly.

Then he wrenched his head up with a curse and pressed her away from him.

“That’s not—get inside. I’ll see myself out.” He had left her there, swaying and stunned.

The tears had finally come. She had collapsed on the concrete stairs and cried so hard she couldn’t walk or speak. It had been pure hell, leaving her with a bruised heart and a terrible cold, but at least she’d been able to resent him and blame him after that. Her crush had been crushed. She hadn’t seen him again until today.

But he insisted nothing had happened.

She cringed, hating that he still had this effect on her! And how was he supposed to see her as a grown-up if she was dressed in his giant-ass clothes? She held the track pants against herself, thinking they’d look as ludicrous as the elf costume.

She left the humid bathroom and brought the clothes back to the bedroom, planning to enter his walk-in closet to find something else, but she lost her nerve.

At least the robe was more of a one-size-fits-all. It probably only fell to his shins while hitting the floor on her. Same for the cuffs. They fell past her wrists, but the thick velour was warm and snuggly and very comforting.

She dropped his clothes on the foot of the bed and belted the robe tighter. Then she found a comb and worked on her hair. She hadn’t had it cut in ages so the tangles fell past her shoulders, taking forever to work out.

Konstantin had left the bedside lamp burning. Otherwise, the room was quiet and dark, allowing her to move to the window where she admired the sparkle of city lights and the few boats moving across the iced waterways.

She sank onto the sofa, letting her arms take a rest in her lap, thinking...

She was too tired to think. Too tired to talk. What would she even say? Everything had become very difficult and grim. Unbearable.

She blocked it out by closing her eyes. She resented that he wanted her to face him and find the words to defend her choices. To explain...

She sighed. At least when she was running flat out, trying to stay afloat, she didn’t have to dwell. She didn’t have to feel. She didn’t have to...

She yawned and let herself tip onto her side. She pulled a cushion under her cheek, needing to rest just for a minute...

Eloise hadn’t come down by the time dinner arrived so Konstantin went back upstairs to find his room empty.

Even as alarm jolted through him, his gaze snagged on the green and striped clothing discarded on the bathroom floor. His own clothes were abandoned on the foot of his bed.

He strode toward the phone on the night table, planning to ask the doorman if a naked woman had walked through the lobby, when he spied the bottom of her bare foot resting on the arm of the love seat that faced the windows. He peered over the back and found her fast asleep, arm curled under the cushion she’d pulled under her ear.

She didn’t look as young now that she was out of her costume and her clownish makeup was washed away. Her cheekbones were high and well-defined, her mouth relaxed and somber. Her skin was so smooth and fine-grained, he wanted to touch her cheek, but he was torn over whether to wake her.

Patience wasn’t one of his virtues. Virtues weren’t really among his virtues. He abided by the law and treated people with civility, but he wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone. He didn’t believe in heaven so he didn’t strive to get there.

But he didn’t needlessly torture people when they were at the end of their rope, either. He wanted to know how she came to be working a dead-end job that left her so exhausted she passed out before dinner, but he let her sleep. And, not for the first time, wondered if she might be taking drugs.

He took the decorative throw off the back of the love seat and draped it over her, then went downstairs to shamelessly go through the pockets of her coat. He came up with a handful of loose change, a subway card, a lip balm, a broken candy cane and a set of two keys, likely for an apartment door and a mailbox.

He sat down to eat alone—which wasn’t unusual for him. It was, however, the first time in a long time that he wished he could call Ilias. Not that Konstantin had ever called him. No, Ilias had reached out so often Konstantin had rarely placed the call himself.

Ilias had been Konstantin’s friend whether he had wanted one or not. He hadn’t. Friendship had been an unfamiliar concept to him. Konstantin hadn’t had siblings and had rarely seen children his own age before he’d been plucked from his father’s remote farm and thrust into his grandfather’s lavish world.

But Konstantin had no sooner got used to the cavernous mansion outside Athens when his grandfather had sent him to “get a proper education.”

At ten years old, he had found himself in a rainy English autumn, unable to speak a word of the language, surrounded by boys who all seemed to know each other, or have common interests, or understand how things were done.

It had been a nightmare. Konstantin understood how to be alone and preferred it. He had tried to seek solitude at every opportunity, but Ilias had said, We’re the only two Greeks in our year. We have to stick together.

Ilias already spoke English he’d learned from his mother. He was outgoing, quick-witted and so personable, even Konstantin couldn’t hate him.

By contrast, one of the first words Konstantin had learned was sullen .

Why so sullen, Master Galanis? the teacher had mocked, making the entire room of boys laugh at him.

He’d been sullen because he’d been cold and miserable and bewildered. He’d never had proper schooling, only what his mother had managed to teach him. Even the basics of math and reading in Greek were difficult for him, but Ilias had sat with him for countless hours, teaching him to draw the letters, tutoring him and helping him finish his homework.

Half the time, Ilias would say, Just copy mine so we can go play football. But the end result was that Konstantin had kept up and passed all his exams. He had also learned there was at least one person in this world who had his back.

Aside from those first couple of years when they’d both been homesick for Greece, Konstantin had never understood what Ilias saw in him. Konstantin would sometimes kick a football or walk to the shops if it was only him and Ilias, but he had little desire to spend time with anyone else. The rest of the boys and their mindless pursuits were superficial and immature.

Ilias would seek him out, though, especially after talking to his mother. Ilias’s father had died when he was six and his mother had only relinquished him to boarding school because it was the school Ilias’s father had gone to. It had been his father’s wish that his son attend it, too. His mother had seemed to need a lot of connection with her son, calling nearly daily from wherever she happened to be, needing advice and reassurance. Ilias was always patient with her, but after ending the call, he would seem quietly distressed.

Konstantin had never known what to do with that. He understood the pressure of responsibility if not the weight of emotion that Ilias seemed to carry. The other boys would cajole Ilias to “cheer up!” but he would dismiss them, then ask Konstantin if he wanted to study. Over time, Konstantin had concluded it was the very fact that he didn’t ask anything of Ilias that made Ilias gravitate to him.

When their university years arrived, they took different directions. Konstantin went to Oxford while Ilias went to Harvard, then Konstantin had to cut his education short. His grandfather had become ill and left such a financial mess of the shipping business, Konstantin had had to step in to right it.

By then, Konstantin had lived half his life in poverty, and the second half in luxury. He knew which lifestyle he preferred. He’d been prepared to grind himself to the bone to keep the company afloat and keep himself in the comforts of wealth.

To his shock, Ilias had not only learned what he was up against, he had stepped in with a loan, completely unasked, leveraging the trust fund he’d gained access to at twenty-one. That had given Konstantin enough breathing room to make swift, radical changes that had been risky, but had not only saved his grandfather’s company, but doubled its share value within two years.

At that point, investors had lined up to throw money at him. They liked having young ambitious blood at the helm.

Konstantin had been growing the company ever since, expanding into tech, commodities, green energy and anything else he thought could turn a profit.

When he had repaid his loan to Ilias, with suitable interest, Konstantin had gone to the US to arrange it. By then, Ilias had been finished at Harvard and was living in New York, beginning his career as an architect. It had been December. The streets and pubs and shops had been bustling with crowds, but Ilias had dragged Konstantin into all of those places.

“Mother has a new boyfriend. She’s spending Christmas with him at his castle in Scotland. Eloise would rather come here. You should stay and spend the holidays with us.”

Konstantin had been introduced to Ilias’s little sister through toothless photos and clumsy drawings that had arrived at school in the mail. Occasionally, he had eavesdropped on conversations over the tablet when she had plonked her way through a piano lesson or complained about something at school. She was eight years younger than they were so she’d always been very much a child, especially once he had left school to work and she was still wearing braces and pigtails.

He didn’t dislike her, but the invitation reeked of sentimentality. He had never celebrated any winter holiday, not beyond a quiet meal with his grandfather who had been gone for three years by then.

Nevertheless, out of respect for his friend and the enormous financial favor Ilias had done him, Konstantin had stuck around.

He barely recognized Eloise when he saw her. She had never looked much like her brother. They had different fathers, but she was no longer a child. She was seventeen and looking chic in snug jeans and a turtleneck. Her hair had been cut as short as his own, revealing her ears and nape. Her green-gold eyes and wide mouth dominated her otherwise delicate face.

Konstantin hadn’t known what to say to her, but the siblings had bantered enough that it wasn’t noticed. As Ilias started to pour drinks, they had argued over who had finished the last of the eggnog and who would pick up more. Ilias refused to let her go.

“I’d like a rum and eggnog today, thank you. If you go, you’ll be gone for hours, chatting with everyone in the store. I don’t need to know the bodega operator’s hobbies or how many kittens the neighbor’s cat had. No. You asked for a tree. You stay here and decorate it.” He pointed at the fragrant evergreen.

“This from the man who can’t get a coffee without getting a number,” she lobbed back.

“Good luck with this one.” Ilias thumbed over his shoulder with mock disgust on his way out the door. “I may or may not come back.”

Konstantin had tried to ignore Eloise, but she did like to chat. Before he’d known it, she had corralled him into helping decorate the tree. As they’d stood close and their fingers had brushed and she looked up at him, he’d been struck by the woman she was on her way to becoming. He’d seen her.

And he’d wanted her.

That sudden rush of masculine energy had been so far offside he’d stepped way back. So far back he’d left the apartment and flown to Athens that night.

Ilias had been surprised by his abrupt departure and Konstantin had blamed Eloise’s childhood case of hero worship, which had never actually bothered him, always seeming harmless. In those moments beside the tree, however, he’d seen her attraction to him. He wasn’t flattering himself. He was a healthy, wealthy man. Women had been noticing him for years. He damned well knew what mutual attraction was and feeling it with her had sent him into a mental fishtail.

So he left, and Konstantin had never seen Ilias in person again. He hadn’t seen Eloise until the news had reached him that Ilias had been killed in a small plane crash.

He never looked back if he could avoid it and didn’t let himself dwell on those nightmarish days now. He had done what he could for Ilias and his family, but it had been pure hell. The funeral service, the eulogy, had been like driving his car into a brick wall at full speed. He had made himself do it, but the impact had nearly destroyed him. Especially when he looked at Eloise.

The agony in her eyes had nearly broken him in two. He hadn’t known what to say, how to mitigate the vastness of loss she was experiencing. He would fall into it himself if he tried. He’d had a near irresistible urge to take her away from all of this. To somehow pull her behind the wall he used to buffer himself from pain.

Don’t feel anything , he silently urged her. Don’t suffer .

She had been glued to her mother’s side, steel to Lilja’s shattered glass. There had been people everywhere, all wanting to approach mother and sister, to condole with them. Ilias had always been popular.

It had been winter again. An Athens winter, but still cold. At the reception after the service, Konstantin had stood outside in the bite of weather, done with old faces from school who he’d never liked in the first place. Done with small talk. Done with the sheer brutality of life.

But he couldn’t make himself leave.

Then, as the light faded, Eloise had found him in the garden. She’d been a shadow of herself. Her black dress had made her look shapeless and washed out. She’d struck him as translucent. Brittle as a sculpture made of ice.

He remembered wanting to warm her. Needing to hold her. Then, somehow, his mouth was on hers and light burst forth inside him, gusting into a furnace of heat. She had tasted like salvation. Like purpose and hope and the future.

She hadn’t pushed him away. Her arm had curled tighter behind his neck.

That was small comfort. What kind of man did that to a grieving woman? Especially one who was still too young for him?

He had pushed her away and he pushed from the table now, stalking across the room to get away from a kiss that had only happened because his self-discipline had been smashed by loss. He’d been too disgusted with himself afterward to reach out to her.

He had told her to contact him if she needed anything, but he hadn’t been surprised when she never did. She and her mother had been surrounded by support that day. That’s how it had looked, anyway.

Now he had to wonder.

Everything in him was wondering about her. Wondering in that way that went well beyond polite interest in an old friend’s kid sister.

She wasn’t a kid any longer. She was at least twenty-four. Her blush of awareness when he had asked if she wanted a bath, and the way her lashes had flickered as her gaze swept over him, had signaled she was still attracted to him.

An answering interest was gripping him, sharp and barbed.

He tightened his hand around his glass, resisting this involuntary reaction. It was carnal and human, but still misplaced. She was Ilias’s little sister. She was on her back foot and needed help.

She was still off-limits.

He tilted his glass to let scotch bite his tongue.