Seducing His Convenient Innocent. Rachael Thomas

his resolve far too much. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by the attraction she still had for him. Not yet. Xena had to come first.

      ‘Manipulate?’

      ‘Yes, you try and control everything. Everyone. Even Xena.’

      ‘I resent that accusation. What I do for Xena I do out of love.’

      ‘Love?’ She abandoned her attempts to hold her hat in place and took it off, exposing her subtly highlighted hair, which had been pulled back into a rough ponytail. The wind whipped stray strands of hair across her face and he scrunched his hands against the urge to push them back from her lovely and beguilingly innocent face.

      Whatever it was that had changed things for Rio after the recital, he sensed she was fighting hard against her attraction to him. An attraction he still felt, still wanted to explore. Patience was all he needed.

      ‘I don’t think a man such as the mighty Lysandros Drakakis, CEO of Drakakis Shipping and Luxury Yachts, does anything for love, does he?’

      Her taunt had the desired effect but he resisted the urge to respond with anger. He was well aware of his inability to emotionally connect with his sister or mother, let alone with another woman. Rio might have challenged that on so many levels, but he wasn’t going to allow her to know it right now. ‘Love for my family is an entirely different thing from passionate love. That kind of love is built on sexual attraction and heated desire.’

      She blushed and looked away. He smiled at the sense of satisfaction that ruffling her feathers had brought him. That sexual chemistry was still there. Buried but alive. ‘For you maybe.’

      ‘So you are holding out for true love, are you? Is that why you stood me up so spectacularly? So publicly?’

      He could still taste her rejection, something he wasn’t at all used to. If he wanted a woman it was usually only a question of when, not if. Rio had refused point-blank to see him after that night, cementing her status as the first woman to turn him down. The only woman to wound his male pride since his early twenties, when his first taste of love had been soured by deceit.

      ‘Yes, I am holding out for true love and you would hardly be the perfect candidate. Not with a string of broken hearts behind you.’ She smiled in that so there kind of way the English were so good at. ‘But I’m not here for us. In case you have forgotten, I’m here for Xena.’

      ‘And what we had isn’t of consequence?’

      Rio looked uncomfortable and a heavy sense of seriousness filled the warm air around them. ‘My friendship with Xena is more important than anything else. I don’t want us to get in the way of that.’

      She looked as though she was holding her breath, as though she was waiting for him to piece together whatever it was in her mind, but the mention of his sister served only to direct his thoughts back to his original purpose of bringing her out here to talk alone.

      ‘I don’t think going over the accident will help anyone right now. She has blocked out everything from the last two months. It’s as if she is stuck at a happy point in her life.’

      ‘I agree on that. That is why I believe it will reassure Xena if she thinks that we are in love.’

      ‘In love? You and me?’ She stumbled over the words, her fingers fidgeting with the hat she clasped as if it were a lifeline. ‘Is that really necessary?’

      His mind raced. All his sister had ever wanted was for him to meet someone and fall in love, and the attraction between him and Rio had been so obvious, so intense he’d allowed Xena to revel in her role as matchmaker. Allowed her to believe there was a future for him and Rio. She’d even suggested that this time he should use their grandmother’s engagement ring, saying that Rio wouldn’t want the flashy diamonds Kyra had demanded.

      He should have told Xena there and then that he didn’t want any kind of commitment, but he hadn’t wanted to destroy her happiness then, just as he didn’t want to now. ‘It would be what Xena has always wanted for us and maybe it could actually help Xena to feel more emotionally secure, which might enable her to remember things again.’

      * * *

      Rio’s heart raced. How could she pretend to be in love with Lysandros when just being around him sent her pulse racing?