Kostas's Convenient Bride: Kostas's Convenient Bride / Desert Prince's Stolen Bride

“I like touching you. I had forgotten how much.”

“Did you take seasickness pills or something this morning?”

His laughter was rich and warm and all hers. A sound he shared with so few people she couldn’t help reveling in it, even if this was a superelaborate, really vivid, overly detailed dream.

“Or something.”

She turned her head so their gazes met, knowing it was risky, but unable to have this conversation without eye contact. “What does that mean?”

“I’ve had a revelation.” His grin was all straight, white teeth and positively blinding.

“What kind of revelation?” she asked suspiciously.

How could she be anything else? He looked like the kid who’d gotten the last cookie in the jar and knew where the others were hidden besides.

“I’ll tell you when we return to our hotel. This is not a discussion we need to have in such a public place.”

“Says the man who kissed me in front of an entire shipload of people.”

“Only half the ship’s passengers are on this deck.”

“You’re being facetious.”

His smile was positively sinful and then he kissed her. Again. Not a passionate one, but certainly nothing platonic either.

Kayla gasped, floundering with feelings she’d barely held in check for years. Her mind fought with her heart and sadly her mind was not winning at the moment.

Still, she said, “You have to stop kissing me.”

“The taste and feel of your lips says otherwise.”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“I assure you, I am not.”

“Andreas!”

He squeezed her neck, like he was comforting her. “Do not worry, Kayla. It is all going to be all right. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. Everything is messed up.”

“Not anymore.”

“How can you say that?” Nothing had changed. Except maybe he’d lost his mind. “I’m dreaming, right? That’s what’s happening here.”

He kissed her again. Seriously. His lips against hers were firm and strong and possessive and real. Very real.

He broke the kiss only to kiss the corner of her lips like he always used to do. “There, does that feel like a dream?”

“I’m not answering that.”

He made a pained sound. “I too have had dreams, but I have done my best to forget them in the morning.”

“Andreas! There are children around.” And avidly interested adults.

“As I said, a conversation for later.”

“I’m not dreaming.”

“No, Kay-love, you are not.”

“I never understood why you used that endearment when you don’t believe in that feeling.” And he hadn’t used it in six years. Now all of a sudden they’d had a mind-blowing kiss and he was using it again.

He shrugged. “It is just a word.”

It wasn’t to her, but maybe that was why he used it. Love was just a word to him, like honey or sweetheart. It meant nothing more, but maybe it meant nothing less either and that was what she should be focused on. Something was happening here.

Something weird.

Something he wasn’t going to discuss around others, which made her think it involved sex. Andreas wanted sex with her. Did she want sex with him? Knowing he planned to marry some paragon of perfection for a business mogul’s wife somewhere down the road?

Kayla deliberately turned her focus back to the view outside the boat and listened to the history behind the bridge off in the distance. Its architectural significance wasn’t enough to get her mind off the idea of sex with Andreas, but she tried.

What was she supposed to do?

Could she have a final hurrah with Andreas without breaking her own heart? He’d broken it once, six years ago, and she’d never mended. It was still too cracked to even consider falling for someone else.

Would giving in to him give her that illusive thing called closure or do her irreparable harm?

How hard would it be to turn him down? The warmth of his arm around her shoulder, the way her body responded to that simple touch told her extremely hard. Leaning toward impossible.

But did she have a choice?

Would she survive a night of casual sex with Andreas Kostas and watching him walk away after like nothing important had happened?

If six years ago had taught her anything, it had been that watching Andreas walk away after intimacy was more painful than losing any foster family. Because he felt like family. He felt like he was supposed to be hers. Only he wasn’t. Not really. They were friends. And that was all Andreas would ever allow her to be.

For him that was clearly an important role. Important enough for him to drop everything to follow her and stay with her until she returned where he considered she belonged, but he didn’t want the kind of belonging that she’d always craved. He didn’t want to be her family.

“New York is a beautiful city. If it was not so full of people, I could live here, I think.” Andreas’s words broke into her musings.

She gathered her thoughts and pressed them back into the recesses of her mind and heart, where they had to stay, just like they had for six years. “It is. I never realized how beautiful. I think I’ll always fit with Portland best, but I could visit New York again and stay longer.”

“Perhaps we will.”

She didn’t reply. They’d traveled together before. Maybe they would again. Maybe his wife wouldn’t care who traveled with the couple on their trips. Maybe Kayla would get to the point that seeing Andreas and his wife didn’t rip through her insides with all the pain of a serrated knife.

Maybe never.