Forgiven but not Forgotten?. ABBY GREEN

ye of little faith,’ Andreas murmured, and hit the elevator button.

      Siena watched as he grew impatient when the lift didn’t materialise straight away, and stood back to point at the stained concrete stairs. ‘It’s a cliché, I know, but the lift isn’t working—and I’m all the way up on the fourteenth floor.’ She couldn’t quite keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

      The light of determination was a definite glint in Andreas’s eye as he said, ‘Lead the way.’

      Siena was huffing and puffing by floor ten, and very aware of Andreas right behind her. When they finally reached the door to her flat she turned to face him. She felt hot, and the hair on the back of her neck felt damp with perspiration. Her heart was hammering.

      ‘Thank you. This is me.’

      Andreas barely had a hair out of place, and not so much as a hint of the effort of climbing up fourteen sets of hard concrete stairs. Although somewhere along the way he had tugged his bow-tie loose, and the top button of his shirt was open, revealing the top of his olive-skinned chest and some springy dark hair.

      Siena’s belly clenched hard. She could remember impatiently undoing his shirt buttons that night in Paris, ripping his tie open…

      Andreas was looking around the bare corridor. Someone was shouting in a nearby flat and then something smashed against a door, making Siena flinch.

      Andreas cursed and took the keys out of her numb fingers. ‘Let’s get you inside.’

      He was doing it again. Taking command, all but pushing her through the door into a bare and forlorn-looking space filled with stained carpet. Siena had done her best to get rid of the stains, with little success. She only hoped that they weren’t what she thought they were…

      Siena put on her one small lamp and regretted it as soon as she did so, because it sent out a far too seductive pink and warm glow. Feeling thoroughly threatened now, she put out her hand for her keys and snapped, ‘You’ve seen me safely in—now, please leave.’

      Looking supremely at ease, Andreas just shut the door behind him and said softly, ‘This must be hard for you…’

      Siena went very still and her hand dropped to her side. He had no idea…how easy this had been for her. To leave behind the tainted trappings of suffocating wealth and excess had been a relief. But that was something no one would ever understand. She’d certainly never be explaining it to this man, who had grabbed onto success and wealth with both hands and was thoroughly enjoying it. And could she begrudge him that? Even if his methods were dubious? Of course not. She had given up that right five years before.

      She put her hand out again for her keys. ‘I have to be up early for work.’

      Andreas didn’t move. He just looked at her, those dark, unreadable eyes roving over her face and over her hair, which was tumbled around her shoulders now, making Siena want to drag it back, tie it up.

      Feeling desperate, she said, ‘Please.’

      ‘But what if you didn’t have to get up early?’

      Siena blinked at Andreas, not understanding him. She shook her head. ‘What do you mean? I start work at six-thirty a.m. It takes me an hour to get there…’

      Andreas’s face was so starkly beautiful in the dim light that she could feel herself being hypnotised. Much as she had been when she’d stood in front of him in that hotel boutique shop, in that dress. She’d taken it off after that night and thrown it in the bin, unable to look at it and not feel sickened.

      He said now in a silky tone, ‘What I mean is that you have a choice, Siena… I’d like to offer you an alternative.’

      It took a second…but then his words sank in along with the very explicit look in his eyes. Since she’d been in England other men had posed much the same question—like the man who had come back to get something from his hotel room and found her making his bed. Except what he’d been offering had been stated in much cruder terms.

      Shame and something much hotter curled through her belly, making self-disgust rise. She took a sidestep back and injected as much icy disdain as she could into her voice. ‘If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting then clearly you refuse to believe that I want you to leave me alone.’

      Andreas took a step closer and panic spiked in Siena, making her take another step back. She felt out of her depth and unbelievably vulnerable. All of the familiar surroundings of her old life were gone. The part she’d played had been as good as scripted. Now she was utterly defenceless, and the one man in the world who hated her guts was propositioning her. And she hated that it didn’t disgust her the way it should.

      He reached out to trail a finger down one cheek, across her jawbone and down to where the pulse beat hectically under her skin at her throat. ‘Even now you affect disgust, but your body betrays you. What happened in Paris…you were as involved as I was—as hot and eager as anything I’ve ever seen. And yet you didn’t hesitate to shift the blame to me to keep yourself pure in your father’s bigoted eyes. God forbid the untouchable heiress had been rolling around on a chair with a mere hotel employee.’

      Siena slapped his hand away and stepped back, hating how breathy she sounded. ‘Get out of here now, Xenakis. Rehashing the past is of no use.’

      The anger Andreas had been keeping in check spilled over into his voice. ‘You can’t bring yourself to offer up even the most grudging of apologies, can you? Even now, when you don’t have a cent to your name or a reputation to safeguard.’

      Shame gripped Siena—and guilt. Ineffectually she said, ‘I…am…sorry.’

      Derision laced Andreas’s voiceas he sneered, ‘Spare me the insincere apology when it’s all but dragged from you.’

      His face was suddenly etched with self-disgust, and he half turned from Siena, raking his hair with a hand. She had a vivid memory of seeing him the following morning, shocked at his black eye and swollen jaw. Evidence of her father’s men’s dirty work. She’d tried to apologise then, but hadn’t been able to speak over his very justified wrath.

      Contrition and a stark desire to assure him that she was truly sorry made her reach out impulsively to touch his sleeve. She dropped her hand hurriedly when he looked at her suspiciously. She gulped under his almost black gaze and said truthfully, ‘I never intended to…to lie about what happened. Or that you should lose your job.’

      Andreas smiled, but it was harsh. ‘No, possibly you didn’t. You would have had your fun with me on the chaise longue of that boutique and then you would have gone on your way, with another notch on your busy bedpost. You forget that I know exactly what you girls were like: avaricous, bored and voracious. But you hadn’t counted on Papà finding you in flagrante delicto, and you made sure that he would not suspect his precious daughter had such base desires. It was much easier to accuse a poor Greek hotel employee.’

      Siena blanched. That was exactly what she had done. But not for her survival, for her sister’s. That was something she could never imagine explaining to this intractable, vengeful man. Especially not when Serena was still so vulnerable. And not when Siena was still reeling with the effect he had on her.

      Andreas slashed his hand through the air and said curtly, ‘You’re right, though. Rehashing the past is of no use.’

      Those dark blue eyes narrowed on Siena again, with a renewed gleam of something that looked suspiciously like determination.

      ‘Are you really telling me you’re so proud that you relish living like this?’ His voice became cajoling. ‘Don’t you miss sleeping until lunchtime and having nothing to worry about other than what time you’ve scheduled your beauty appointments or which dress you’ll wear that evening?’ He continued relentlessly. ‘Are you really expecting me to believe that you wouldn’t have all that back if you could? That you wouldn’t seize the opportunity to walk amongst your peers again?’

      Siena