Читать книгу: «The Volakis Vows», страница 2

‘Where have you been?’ Cosima demanded when Tally walked back into the big front hall.

‘Out seeing the horses,’ Tally confided.

Drawing closer, Cosima wrinkled her dainty little nose with distaste. ‘I can smell them on you!’

‘I’ll take a shower before dinner,’ Tally said cheerfully and she headed for the stairs just as Sander strolled down them, looking impossibly cool in well cut chinos and an open shirt.

‘Tally, you’ve been out doors,’ Sander noted, registering that her hair had been whipped into a gloriously wild tangle of streaming curls and her cheeks had been stung pink by the breeze. She looked more vibrant, sensual and kissable than ever. He loved the fact that she wasn’t fussing with her appearance or trying to duck his notice because her appearance was less than perfect. He could not recall when a woman had last been so real in his radius and it was a powerful attractant.

‘Saying hello to the horses,’ Tally confided with her ready smile, colliding with dark golden eyes fringed by sooty black lashes and feeling positively dizzy. Close up he was absolutely breathtaking and her mouth ran dry and her knees felt weak.

‘Maybe now that you’ve had a break you could take care of Cosima’s ironing. I’m afraid the staff are very busy this evening,’ another female voice interposed loudly.

Tally turned in some surprise to regard her hostess, Eleni Ziakis. ‘I’m sorry but why would I do Cosima’s ironing? I’m not her maid.’

‘No, she’s not,’ Cosima was quick to agree, her discomfiture patent in the face of Tally’s polite bewilderment.

Sander recognised with impatience that Eleni had spotted his interest in Tally and he strode off before his presence could trigger any further baiting from that source. Women, he thought in exasperation; can’t live with them, can’t live without them. His keen gaze was welded by libidinous male instinct to the voluptuous sway of Tally’s beautifully rounded backside as she climbed the stairs and the ready pulse of arousal at his groin let him know that he had gone without sex long enough to be getting uncomfortable. Her exuberant smile had informed him, should he ever have doubted the fact, that his interest was reciprocated. He would not be sleeping alone that night, he decided hungrily.

‘When the heck did you get to know Sander Volakis?’ Cosima gasped in disbelief, curiosity having sent her upstairs in her half-sister’s wake.

‘I ran into him earlier and he introduced himself … it’s no big deal,’ Tally fielded lightly.

‘The way Eleni was watching the two of you, it was a very big deal to her!’ Cosima laughed. ‘She used to be engaged to Sander’s older brother, Titos, but he was killed in a car crash last winter. I think Eleni’s trying to keep her interest in the family but she’ll have her work cut out. Sander is a real womaniser!’

In the midst of struggling to conceal her interest in those titbits of information, Tally was betrayed into turning right round and saying, ‘Is he?’

‘He has a new woman every month. Don’t waste your time, Tally,’ Cosima warned her. ‘Everybody dreams of pulling Sander but you’ll never make the grade.’

Tally flushed, her freckles standing out clearly against her fair complexion. ‘I have no desire to make the grade,’ she lied, and the very fact that she knew she was lying affronted her as she had always believed that she had more sense than to be attracted to the sort of arrogant guy who scored women like goals on the football pitch and marked a notch his bed post accordingly.

‘I’m not trying to put you down but you’re so not his type. He goes for really beautiful women … models, actresses,’ Cosima told her, her brown eyes scanning Tally’s unconsciously disappointed face with a touch of condescending amusement. ‘He’s got quite a reputation …’

‘I’m not interested in Sander Volakis!’ Tally proclaimed in a tone of annoyance.

Cosima made no attempt to hide her amusement. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no if I got the chance and Dad would back me all the way—Sander is what is known as “eligible”, which basically means that the girl who gets him to the altar will have done very, very well for herself indeed!’

‘I gather he’s rich,’ Tally remarked, irritating herself, for while pride made her want to drop the subject, the curiosity that needled her and drove her on was stronger still.

‘I heard he made his first million before he even left school and even before you take his business interests into account you have to consider the family fortune,’ Cosima responded in a suitably lowered tone, an avaricious gleam in her gaze. ‘They made it in shipping and business is thriving.’

Tally actually found herself feeling sorry for Sander Volakis. Evidently his wealth and his family’s made him a target for ambitious socialites and gold-diggers. It struck her as ironic that Cosima, who had never ever had to worry about the cost of anything, should be so very obsessed with what everyone was worth, but that was how it was. Her half-sister measured people and their importance purely in terms of cash and Tally was very much aware that her own lack of money increased her lowly status in Cosima’s eyes.

However, when Cosima showed off her pathetically crumpled evening outfit Tally took pity on the younger girl. Cosima had never wielded an iron in her life but was forced to agree to try when Tally offered to teach her how it was done. For the first time Tally felt like a real sister and the two young women ended up in paroxysms of giggles over Cosima’s clumsy amateurish efforts at the ironing board.

‘What are you wearing?’ Cosima finally thought to ask.

‘Nothing very exciting.’

‘I’d loan you something but …’ Cosima glanced at their combined reflections in the wardrobe mirror and nothing more needed to be said. Cosima was tall and very slim while Tally was small and curvy. They would never be able to share clothes.

‘I’m fine.’ Tally was accustomed to such remarks, having grown up in the shadow of her taller, thinner mother who had tried to put her on a diet at the age of nine. Binkie had had to utilise a lot of tact to persuade Crystal that no amount of dieting was likely to give Tally the same long lean lines as her mother.

She donned her dull black chain-store dress knowing that, in her sombre apparel, purchased purely because it was suitable for so many purposes, she would resemble a crow amongst a flock of exotic birds. For the first time she looked at her reflection and experienced a daunting pang of regret for attributes she did not have. What evil fate had given her corkscrew curls, freckles and breasts like melons instead of straight silky hair and petite feminine proportions? Binkie had tried to teach her charge that looks weren’t important but Tally knew she lived in a world where appearance always counted. It mattered when you went for an interview and it mattered even more when you wanted to attract a man.

Did she really want to attract a wealthy womaniser? Who are you trying to kid? Tally scolded herself for being so silly and superficial all the way downstairs as she trailed in her effervescent teenaged sister’s wake. She espied Sander at the far end of the table seated beside Eleni Ziakis, who wore an eye-catching white gown that bared one shoulder, and she tried not to take strength from the fact that he looked bored stiff. Cosima was no company at all while she giggled with her friends, exchanged confidential chat in whispered Greek and texted constantly on her phone. When the meal was over, it was announced that drinks would be served afterwards.

‘I’m going to have an early night.’ Cosima smothered a yawn with one hand and complained, ‘I’m really sleepy and there’s a big party here tomorrow.’

Tally was relieved to be released from her chaperoning duties. Thinking cheerfully about the paperback romance she had packed, she was crossing the hall towards the staircase when Sander intercepted her.

‘Tally …’

Tally spun round and tipped her head back, dark blonde curls spiralling back from her cheekbones where the ready colour of awareness ignited the minute she met intent dark golden eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Let’s go out for a drink,’ he suggested lazily, his attention roaming inexorably from her bright beautiful eyes down to her generous mouth and the voluptuous breasts shaped by her dress.

‘I was thinking more of going to bed …’ she began, tempted almost beyond bearing to say yes there and then. However, when she caught the amused gleam of confidence in his stunning gaze betraying his appreciation of her unintentional double entendre, she grasped the fact that he was expecting her to spend the night with him. As she turned cold at the suspicion that he saw her as a very sure thing in that respect, she glimpsed Eleni Ziakis staring coldly at them from a doorway and her colour heightened even more.

Her light ‘Thanks but no thanks’ tripped off her tongue without hesitation.

Startled by the kind of refusal that so rarely came his way, Sander stared down at her with a searching frown.

Awkward with the resulting silence, Tally felt prompted to fill it with a reasonable excuse and said, ‘I’ve got a great book to read.’

Sander, glib of tongue though he was, had no answer for that and Tally, conscious of how silly that last comment had been and hot with mortification at her ineptitude, fled upstairs. Mercifully her reluctant room mate was nowhere to be seen and Tally climbed into bed with her book. The adventures of a heroine who seemed to attract an incredible number of different men, not one of whom she wanted, only irritated Tally and the mood she was now in and she put the book aside and doused the light. But sleep was not so easy to find, for her thoughts were running back and forth over Sander’s brief invitation, and questioning why she had turned him down flat and in a way that would ensure he would never ask her again.

His approaching her when there were so many beautiful young alternatives available had shocked her. She knew she didn’t fit in with the exclusive guests staying at Westwood Manor. She didn’t have the right clothes, the right accent, background or attitude. So why had he selected her for his invitation? Could it have been because he assumed that she would be flattered, impressed to death and a pushover in the sex stakes? Or was that her low self-esteem doing the talking instead of her brain?

After all, a rich, sophisticated, good-looking guy had asked her out and she had said no because she was unprepared, and because deep down inside she was so insecure that she had felt he had to have an ulterior and base motive for choosing her. That was pathetic and most likely nonsense, she told herself impatiently, thoroughly irritated by the manner in which she had reacted. She fell asleep wishing she had said yes, wishing it over and over again …

Tally awoke a short time later with a start to find the light on and her room mate noisily rummaging through a drawer. She sat up blinking and, as she did so, her attention fell on a dainty vanity case sitting behind the door. Dismay filled her because it was a designer piece that belonged to Cosima; her half-sister was bound to be looking for it. Checking her watch and registering that it was only midnight, Tally got up, pulled on her robe and grabbed the case, planning to slide it just inside Cosima’s bedroom on the floor below.

But when she gently opened the door a small way, she peered through the crack and saw the bedroom was still brightly lit and the bed unoccupied. Entering the room and setting the vanity case down on the dressing table, she noted that the bathroom was empty as well and she wondered where Cosima was. It was when she was walking back across the main landing that she thought she heard her sibling’s voice and that it sounded oddly shrill. Approaching the banister, she looked down into the hall below.

She was astonished to see that the massive front door was standing wide and that Sander Volakis was guiding her swaying sister towards the stairs. My goodness, had they been out somewhere together? I wouldn’t say no if I got the chance, her half-sister had admitted earlier. Had Cosima said yes where Tally had said no? But Tally had no time to consider those daunting questions as Cosima was noisily chattering in slurred and hiccuping Greek, her eye make-up smeared round her eyes and her short skirt rucked up to show too much thigh. It was clear that she had over-indulged in some substance and that, as a result, she could hardly walk. Appalled by what she was seeing, Tally hurried down the stairs to find out how the younger woman had got into such a state …

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT on earth have you done to her?’ Tally demanded angrily before she even reached the hall.

Sander Volakis shot her an outraged look from scorching golden eyes. ‘This is not a conversation you and I are going to have …’

Tally folded her arms and blocked his path. ‘I assure you that we are going to have that conversation, whether you want it or not. It looks as though Cosima’s been drinking. Are you aware that she’s only seventeen?’

‘Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be looking after her?’ Sander slashed back in blatant condemnation. ‘Tonight, you’re doing a lousy job of it!’

Tally was mortified, her fair skin blossoming pink at that jibe, which hit her right where it hurt. Evidently Cosima had pulled the wool over her eyes earlier that evening by faking tiredness and assuring her that she was going straight to bed. Having got Tally off her case she had then, it seemed, gone out. With Sander? Something hideously raw and painful twisted inside Tally’s stomach as she tried to deal with that unwelcome thought. Eleni Ziakis joined them, took in the situation at a glance and stared with a raised brow at Tally, making her writhingly aware that she was only wearing a wrinkled nightie and robe. As Eleni’s kid sister appeared at her elbow, the brunette spoke quietly to her and then said, ‘Kyra will take Cosima straight up to bed. Clearly she’s been drinking. It’s really not a good idea to attract attention to her condition by causing a scene, Miss Spencer—’

Tally compressed her full pink mouth. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was causing a scene. I would simply like to know what happened.’

‘Cosima is in no fit state right now to tell you and I can assure you that her parents would prefer this matter to be kept private,’ Eleni pointed out drily as Kyra took charge of Cosima and coaxed her carefully upstairs.

Sander thrust open a door on the other side of the hall. ‘We’ll discuss it in here, Tally.’

Tally knew that she was being challenged and she reckoned that he was so sharp he was in danger of cutting himself. She recognised the angry passionate glow in his gaze and the trace of aggressive colour accentuating the angles of his superb cheekbones. He had taken offence as only a guy unaccustomed to censure could do and she suspected that he was, at heart, the owner of a temperament as volatile as a smouldering volcano. And a trait that previously she loathed in her impulsive and often contrary mother suddenly became a deep and abiding source of fascination.

‘This really isn’t necessary, Sander,’ Eleni Ziakis declared. ‘There is no need for you to make any sort of explanation to anyone. Miss Spencer is being stupid and offensive.’

‘I can handle this alone, thank you,’ Sander fielded smoothly, ushering Tally past him and shutting the door in the brunette’s face.

‘Where did you take Cosima tonight?’ Tally questioned shortly.

‘I didn’t take her anywhere. Why would I have?’ A scornful dark brow elevated at the idea. ‘To me, she’s a little girl. I believe she and a group of her friends booked a taxi to take them to the pub in the village. When I arrived there the barman was refusing to serve Cosima any more alcohol without proof of ID. She had a blazing argument with him before stalking out in a temper.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Tally groaned when he had finished speaking. ‘She told me she was having an early night.’

‘How many teenagers do you know?’ Sander derided in disbelief. ‘An early night?’

‘All right, all right,’ Tally sighed, feeling very foolish for being so trusting. ‘So what happened after that?’

‘I had one drink and left the pub about an hour later. Driving back I came upon Cosima sitting on a wall about a mile out of the village. She was so drunk she could barely stand and although I really didn’t want to get involved I didn’t feel that I could just leave her there. She got into my car and started crying hysterically—apparently she had arranged to meet her boyfriend at the pub but he didn’t show up.’

Embarrassed colour was creeping up below Tally’s skin, making her feel hot and uncomfortable. As she shifted position Sander focused fully on her and his attention could only linger on the magnificent expanse of the cleavage revealed by her open robe and low-necked nightie, the lace-decorated edge of which was gradually sliding apart and performing a very poor job of hiding her superb breasts, which were high and full and round. Just looking at that magnificent swell of feminine flesh, he got hard as steel.

‘I had no idea Cosima had even gone out,’ Tally admitted, sucking in a sustaining breath in the silence that suddenly seemed deafening.

‘And if she did sneak out, you didn’t want it to be with me,’ Sander finished in shrewd silken addition.

At that crack, Tally literally froze as it hit her in the back like an unexpected bullet and left her reeling. For an instant she could not credit what he had dared to insinuate. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to say,’ she framed, playing dumb with all her might.

‘You know exactly what I’m saying. I was looking at you when you first saw me with Cosima,’ Sander declared with supreme assurance, brilliant golden eyes astonishingly vivid below the heavy fringe of his black lashes. ‘You didn’t like it. You were angry with me more because you were jealous than because you thought I had been fooling around with Cosima!’

Tally went rigid, the colour in her cheeks seeping away as mortification crept through her like a freezing, debilitating fog. ‘That is totally ridiculous. I hardly know you—why on earth would I be jealous?’

‘You tell me.’ As Sander voiced that invitation an insolent smile crept across his beautiful wilful mouth. And it was beautiful, she thought in almost pained recognition, as truly beautiful as he was altogether. He was an almost perfect masculine specimen, so gorgeous she couldn’t stop looking and drinking him in like a life-enhancing elixir.

‘I know enough about women to know what I read in your eyes, glikia mou,’ he extended.

Her hands closed into tight angry fists. ‘You didn’t read anything in my eyes because there was nothing there to be read!’

‘Liar … liar,’ Sander rhymed smoothly and coolly enough to send a current of violent anger rushing through Tally’s small still figure. For the very first time in her life she was mad enough at a man to want to hit him and to understand why provocation made people lose control. He might as well have tossed a hand grenade into the once tranquil pool of her mood, for all of a sudden she was on edge and ready to fight to defend her pride.

‘You’re incredibly vain,’ Tally condemned furiously, watching him move closer with the same wariness with which she might have watched a lion strolling free of a cage. That lithe long-limbed grace of his simply enhanced his sex appeal so that in spite of her annoyance she found herself trapped into staring at him, studying his every move with an appetite for the visual that was new to her. ‘I don’t even like you.’

‘I don’t need you to like me,’ Sander murmured, his perceptive dark scrutiny welded to her wide green eyes as he basked in the unwilling hunger he saw etched there. ‘I only need you to want me.’

A prickling sensation touched the skin at the nape of Tally’s neck as if that keen look of his had actually touched her. Part of her wanted to run away, but an even greater part wanted to see the moment out and cap his every comment. She had the vague spooky suspicion that someone was walking over her grave and that she was getting a wake-up call to finally experience that something she had waited so very long to find. She might want to slap him, she might want to shout at him and punish him for his exceedingly arrogant assumptions, but all of those very basic promptings were outrageously entangled with a very powerful desire for him to kiss her … and for her to taste him. He exuded a masculine strength that drew her even as it awakened her hostility. A pool of heat was forming low in her stomach while her bra was starting to feel like a metal restraint over the straining curves of her breasts.

‘And you do want me,’ Sander Volakis pronounced with confidence, dark eyes flaring to hot gold as he searched her heart-shaped face because, for a moment while she sparred with him, he had wondered if just for once he could have got it wrong. She had, after all, turned him down when he’d asked her out earlier but now, seeing that familiar look of desire in her gaze, he was already wondering if that refusal could’ve been a feminine ploy to spur his interest with a false show of indifference. ‘Just as I want you, glikia mou.’

It was that roughened masculine admission that slashed through Tally’s angry defences like a cruelly efficient steel blade since, until that moment, no man had ever contrived to make Tally feel insanely attractive and sexy. But Sander Volakis achieved that miracle at one stroke. While he studied her with scorching intensity and with a hunger he couldn’t hide, excitement was lighting her up inside like a fantastic firework display and she smiled in delighted acknowledgement of an appeal she had not known she had.

In receipt of that encouraging smile he pulled her up against his lean, strongly built frame and brought his wide sensual mouth down on hers with demanding fervour. The skilled slide of his tongue between her parted lips sent a jolt of excruciating pleasure roaring through Tally like an electric shock but that initial sweetness was swiftly followed up by a fierce sense of unbearable craving. The kiss wasn’t enough, nowhere near enough to meet the hunger that had fired her every skin cell with yearning. As she made an unconscious sound of dissatisfaction, her fingers dug tautly into his broad shoulders and she strained against the hard muscular contours of his broad chest and long, powerful thighs, urgently needing that physical contact to satisfy the tingling sensitivity of her nipples and the gnawing ache stirring between her legs.

In answer, Sander wrapped his arms round her and crushed her ripe mouth beneath his again, revelling in the taste of her and the lush firm softness of her shapely body against him. He wanted to gather her up and carry her off to bed to sate the fierce hunger she roused in him. He laced long fingers into the mass of her blonde curls and tipped her head back, meshing with glorious green eyes enhanced by skin the colour of clotted cream. Once again he attempted to pinpoint the source of her powerful attraction. Was it the fearless honesty of those eyes, which met his with no hint of the coy suggestiveness and secrecy he was more accustomed to seeing? Or the wild sensuality with which she surrendered to his mouth and gave him back kiss for fiery kiss, stoking his desire to ever greater heights? In bed, he suspected, her passion would be a perfect spontaneous match for his own.

A mobile phone buzzed. Tally blinked like someone who having been hypnotised, was now being called back to awareness and immediately raised her hands to break free of his hold and step back from him, her sudden rigidity an instant rejection of the new intimacy they had established.

Perfectly attuned to her, Sander frowned as he switched his phone off. ‘Don’t be like that,’ he groaned.

Tally was hot and dizzy. Dismayed to see that her robe was hanging open, she wrapped it more securely round her and reknotted the sash. Her hands were trembling and she was breathing rapidly, her bemused thoughts in freefall but that fast she understood that what he had just made her feel was the biggest temptation she had ever withstood. And she knew that what they had both felt was almost frighteningly powerful. Her nipples were tight, hard and almost stinging in response and at the heart of her she was uncomfortably hot and damp with a desire that clawed at her every sense. The taste of him? He tasted so unbelievably good that she could only want more …

Sander extended a lean brown hand. ‘Come …’

‘No, don’t say it!’ Tally urged, backing off another defensive step, feeling ridiculously like a woman in danger of losing her immortal soul. ‘Goodnight, Sander.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Sander breathed incredulously as she reached the door.

‘Very serious.’ Her hand closed tightly round the door knob and she refused to take the chance to turn her head and look at him again. ‘I don’t want anything else to happen.’

As the door swung shut on her quick exit Sander swore in raw and angry disbelief below his breath. What was the matter with her? Was the cut and run response her concept of flirtation? He had never ever got so hot with a woman only to have her walk away from him, leaving him unsatisfied. Nor had he ever been so surprised by the power of a woman to attract him. The prospect of a cold shower to cool his urgently aroused body had zero attraction.

Tally went to check on Cosima and found her sound asleep on top of the bed. Slipping off her half-sister’s shoes, she arranged a throw over the younger girl and suppressed a sigh. She would not hold spite: tomorrow she would try harder to win Cosima’s trust and perhaps she would get the chance to persuade her sibling that she was not sharing her weekend with some kind of prison warder.

But as Tally crept into the room she was sharing and slid back below the duvet on her bed, she was most troubled on her own behalf. When it came to the male sex she had always believed that she was intelligent and sensible and she had, if she was honest, looked down on several of the impulsive romantic choices her mother, Crystal, had made over the years. Yes, she acknowledged shamefacedly, she had felt quite superior in that field, convinced that she would never do anything half so foolish, so possibly she had deserved to be shot down in flames for being smug and short-sighted.

She had thought she knew it all and learned that in truth she was no more sophisticated than a toddler when it came to men. One salient fact had escaped her. Until she had actually experienced a genuinely powerful attraction to a man, she had not known what she was talking about. In the space of twenty-four hours, Sander Volakis had taught her things about herself that she really hadn’t wanted to find out. Meeting Sander had proved to be a horribly humbling experience, she reflected ruefully. She had learned that just being near him could make her as giddy, hot and incapable of rational thought as an empty-headed adolescent. She had learned that she was human and fallible and capable of doing foolish things. She had also learned that refusing to give way to so strong a desire and practising self-denial could actually hurt.

Little wonder, then, that her mother had wrecked so many of her relationships by being unfaithful. Crystal Spencer had never said no to such an attraction when it came her way, had never put her current lover or indeed her child’s stability ahead of sexual temptation. Crystal had done as she liked, when she liked, and had often paid the price for it. But Tally had also paid a high price too.

On more than one occasion, a young Tally had become attached to one of her mother’s live-in boyfriends and that man’s subsequent sudden disappearance from her life had distressed and confused her. At a tender age she had decided that men weren’t reliable and that it was safer not to care for them. It was only when she was older, and with hindsight, that she’d had to admit it was her mother’s behaviour that had often destroyed those relationships.

In any case, getting involved with Sander Volakis would lead nowhere. At least, it would have led her upstairs to his bedroom tonight, she admonished herself, well aware of his intentions. And deferred pleasure was definitely not something Sander knew much about. They had kissed and both had liked it and wanted more, and Sander would’ve seen no reason why they shouldn’t immediately satisfy that desire. She had known exactly what was on his mind, had felt the urgency of his need against her and had recognised her own.

Maybe she was going to die a virgin, Tally thought in sudden horror, untouched by human hand and unwanted. Sander was too cool to chase her uphill and down dale in the hope that she might relent. Her sudden astounding desirability to a male of his looks and worldly status must just have been a fluke, one of those crazy inexplicable things.

Utterly crazy, she repeated doggedly to herself. They had nothing in common aside of the fact that she was Greek on her father’s side and Sander didn’t even know that because her father and his family were in no hurry to tell people who she was. She and Sander inhabited different worlds. By all accounts he was a wealthy highflying businessman while she was a student. How much did she even share with Cosima who came from that same exclusive world of privilege? Precious little, she acknowledged sadly.

Yet, wasn’t this supposed to be the stage of her life when she made mistakes and discovered who she really was? When she broke the rules and experimented? But jumping into bed with Sander Volakis would definitely be a big mistake. There would be no future with him and she would only get hurt. Did every relationship have to have a future? Did serious feelings always have to be involved? Was there no room for anything lighter and more temporary?