LUCY MONROE - The Greek's Innocent Virgin

Which meant she should be doing her best to complete the break with the Kouros and Demakis families.

Nevertheless, she found herself trying to draw his mother into conversation. The older woman’s dark eyes were too sad for Rachel’s tender heart to ignore.

Sebastian had been called from the table to take an urgent international call at the beginning of dinner. His brother had left the island with the rest of the family after the wills had been read.

“I’ve only got a small patio at my apartment, but I keep an herb garden,” Rachel said as the salad course was served.

Phillippa’s great passion was gardening and Rachel gave silent thanks for something to talk about unrelated to the family’s recent loss.

“Basil and mint grow especially well in pots,” Phillippa replied, her dulled eyes lighting a little with interest. “I had not expected you to like gardening. Andrea was appalled by the very idea of getting dirt on her hands.”

“My mother and I shared very little in common.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“Yes.” What else could she say?

“A mother and a daughter can find much joy in sharing one another’s lives. My own mother taught me many things, not least of which was a love of growing things.”

“She must have been a very special woman.”

“She was. She and Uncle Matthias were always close.” The grief came back to settle over Phillippa like a physical mantle.

“Did you teach your sons to garden?” Rachel honestly couldn’t imagine Sebastian or Aristide tending plants, but she hoped the question would get Phillippa’s mind off of her grief.

The older woman smiled with indulgence. “No. Those two were always too busy for such a time intensive hobby.” She shook her head. “I have two wonderful sons, but I would have liked having a daughter as well.”

“I’m sure when they marry, their wives will find you a welcome addition to their lives.”

The thought of Sebastian married to a proper Greek girl caused pain deep in the region of her heart, but Rachel disregarded it. She had grown very adept at ignoring her feelings.

But Phillippa was shaking her head again. “They were too busy as boys for hobbies and are too busy as men making money to find wives. Sebastian is already thirty and he has never even dated a woman longer than a few weeks.”

“I’m sure when the time is right…” Her voice trailed off at the strange look in the older woman’s dark eyes.

But before she could question it, Sebastian returned from his telephone call.

He folded his tall frame into the chair at the end of the table. “Mama, there is something I would appreciate you doing for Rachel.”

The Greek woman looked at her son with obvious love and approval. “What is it, my son?”

“She wants to donate her mother’s possessions to auction for charity, but she doesn’t want anything of sentimental value to the family to be sold.” He looked to Rachel as if expecting her to confirm or deny his words.

So, she nodded. “That’s right.”

Phillippa’s dark brown eyes expressed her surprise. “You wish me to go through your mother’s things with you?”

“Just the things in her room. Anything that might be considered hers in the other rooms of the house can simply stay with the villa.” She’d thought about it and that seemed the easiest way to handle the situation.

“But surely you’ll want the things she treasured.”

“No.”

“I have a few items of my mother’s. They give me comfort when I think of her.”

“I will find more satisfaction knowing her possessions brought something good to the lives of children in need.”

The compassionate understanding in Phillippa’s eyes was almost enough to make Rachel lose the rigid hold she had on her emotions. “I understand. I would be pleased to help you.”

“Thank you,” Rachel replied with deep sincerity.

The sweet fragrance of honeysuckle mingled with the warm, salt laden air off the sea, wrapping around Rachel while her toes sank into pebbly sand. Unable to sleep, she’d come down to the beach, thinking a walk would help settle her mind.

But it wasn’t her mind that needed settling.

It was her body.

Being around Sebastian always did this to her, made her aware of her femininity in a way she managed to ignore the rest of the time. After what had happened to her when she was sixteen, that wasn’t hard, but somehow the powerful tycoon undermined defenses that were rock-solid around other men.

And he didn’t even try.

Sebastian Kouros had no interest in her, had never once intimated that he was aware of her as anything other than his beloved great-uncle’s stepdaughter.

But that didn’t stop her hormones from raging, or her heart from tying itself in knots over him.

“What are you doing out here, pethi mou?”

Spinning around at the sound of his voice, her heart climbed right up into her throat. She staggered backward away from that all too close masculine body, her feet hitting wet sand and then water. “Sebastian!”

His hands shot out and grabbed her shoulders, stopping her from an ignominious landing in the shallow water. “You did not know I was here?”

She shook her head dumbly.

He pulled her forward until her feet were once again on dry land, but he did not move, leaving her way too close to him. “I made no attempt to disguise my approach.”

“I w-was thinking.” She stumbled over her words, her brain processing the new sensory input from his arrival.

His fingers were warm and solid through the silk-thin cotton of her sleeves and his scent, spicy and overwhelmingly male, dominated her senses. The full moon supplied sufficient light for his formfitting, black T-shirt to reveal every defined abdomen and well-developed chest muscle. While his light colored sports shorts drew attention to legs that would have looked more appropriate on a long-distance runner than a corporate executive. His feet were bare like hers and their toes were scant inches apart.

For some reason that seemed very intimate.

“YOU must have been thinking about something very absorbing if your thoughts were so deep they prevented you from hearing my footsteps.”

How ironic that thoughts of the man had prevented her from preparing herself mentally to meet up with him. “Yes.”

“Why are you not sleeping?”

Did he realize he was still holding on to her? She tried shrugging to see if the movement would remind him to release her and step back. “I couldn’t.”

He ignored her silent bid for freedom, probably hadn’t even noticed it. “Your mother died less than a week ago. It is understandable, this lack of rest.”

“I suppose,” she replied, content to let him draw his own conclusions.

She had enough to deal with not moving those remaining inches and snuggling into the warmth and safety his tall body offered. She wanted him physically and that in itself was shocking enough, but she wanted something else from him, something she’d learned long ago was not on offer in her life. Love. Commitment. Security.

“I understand. My uncle’s death has caused much grief in my family.”

That was probably as close as Sebastian would come to admitting his own weakness and the fact he was no doubt awake because of his own undiluted grief. Any feelings of sadness she had at the death of her mother were weakened by relief that the emotional pain of living in the shadow of her misdeeds was over.

She licked her lips, trying to maintain her concentration when his nearness was wreaking havoc with her ability to focus on what was being said. “Matthias was a good man.”

Sebastian’s hands dropped away from her shoulders finally, but he remained too close to ease her awkwardness. “He was, but I should not have dismissed your own grieving.”

“What do you mean?” She had not expressed any real grief, so how could he have dismissed it?

She wasn’t even sure if she was capable of mourning her mother’s death.

“I was not kind to you this afternoon and I am sorry.” The words came out stilted, not at all like his usual smooth conversation.

He probably apologized about as often as she dated, which was never.

“It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

“I hurt you and I should not have added to your pain in that way.”

Oh, man, when he got going on the remorse thing, he took it seriously. And it made her feel guilty because while he’d hurt her, it had not been in addition to the pain of loss, but to the pain of a lifetime lived as Andrea’s daughter.

“Thank you for your concern, but honestly, I’m used to comments like that.”

The sound he made said her words had not soothed him.

She sighed, unable to stifle the urge to reach out, to touch in an age-old gesture of comfort. Her fingers settled gently against his hair roughened arm and it was all she could do to remember what she was going to say. Oh, yeah…

“I’m not angry with you.” Not anymore. “Matthias was a kind and caring man. I’m sorry he died the way he did. I’m sorry my mother’s life ended the way it did, but I don’t blame you for pointing out the truth. I am her daughter and I’ve learned to live with that.”

An indecipherable expression settled over his angular features. “Earlier, I was worried you might take your story to the tabloids, but I realize now you would not do so.”

Chills of horror skated along her nerve endings. “Never.”

“Andrea courted publicity of the worst kind.”

“And I had to live with it all my life.”

“You did not like it.”

“I hated it. As a child, I got teased and was expelled from two different private schools because of her behavior.” Andrea had been caught having sex with one of Rachel’s teachers by the man’s wife and the second time, she’d been arrested for cocaine possession. “It wasn’t much better at university. The world seems like such a big place until you’re the one in the middle of ugly media attention.”

And by then, her mother had married a rich Greek tycoon old enough to be her father. It was the stuff of fantasy for would-be journalists making their name in the tabloid press.

Which was why Rachel had legally changed her last name upon graduation. She’d never told Andrea, not wanting a big scene, but no one in Rachel’s current life knew that she was related to a woman notorious for her sexual exploits and questionable social activities.

In the United States, the story of Rachel Long, daughter of Andrea Long Demakis, simply did not exist.

Being shy and rather average looking had its advantages.

She realized this time it was she who continued to hold on to him and quickly pulled her hand away. “Sorry.”

“I do not mind.”

She swallowed. “Yes, well, I should get back. I’m sure I can sleep now,” she said, lying through her teeth, but needing to get away from his unnerving presence.

His hands caught her waist, halting her body and her breathing all in one go. “Are you sure?”

“I…” She choked trying to get air into her lungs and he pulled her closer, soothing her back, his expression too heated to be labeled concern.

She started to breathe again, but still couldn’t speak. His silver gaze was doing things to her insides she’d long since convinced herself was the stuff of fantasy. Shivery sensations traveled along nerve endings she didn’t even know she had and a heavy, aching sensation in her womb radiated downward to make her thighs clench.

Firm, masculine lips tilted in a knowing smile and she was sure he knew just what was happening to her.