Her Deal With The Greek Devil (Mills & Boon Modern) (Rich, Ruthless & Greek, Book 2) - Caitl Caitlin Crews (well read books txt) 📖

pay other people to worry about my wardrobe,” he replied. And smiled. “I already know I will look good in it, after all.”

She lifted her glass in a mocking toast. “There you have it. Innate style. If you were fashion conscious, there would be more preening.”

“You can’t possibly be suggesting that you pay absolutely no mind to what you wear,” he objected, mildly enough. “When you might happen to find yourself on a red carpet at any moment.”

Her blue eyes looked something like merry. “No, of course not. What I’m saying is if I chose to wear a garbage bag to a red carpet, I would do it with such élan that garbage bags might very well become the rage afterward. That’s style.”

Constantine looked down at her and couldn’t shift the same brooding mood he’d been in since his conversation with Balthazar.

“You’re not the girl who lived here all those years ago,” he said, in an abrupt growl. “Sometimes it’s hard to imagine you could possibly be one and the same.”

Her expression changed. And he had a quick, uncomfortable bolt of recognition at the sight, because it was instantly clear to him that she was acting a part. The charming, artless version of her was a role. Perhaps it really was a part of her, too, but it was a part she used for her own devices. Why did Constantine find it so difficult to remember that she could not possibly have scaled the heights she had were she not capable of working a room? Just as he was.

That did not sit well. At all.

“Did you expect me to be sixteen, then?” she asked quietly. She gazed at him with those sharp eyes of hers, and Constantine suddenly felt exposed. The lantern light washing all over him didn’t help. Her mouth curved. “Oh. You did. Let me guess how you thought that would look. You expected that there would be weeping. Maybe even a tantrum or two, since I was always accused of throwing those, though I never did. You expected me to turn bright red every time you deigned to look at me directly. And best of all, pick up where we left off, with me whispering my secrets into your faithless ear so you could use them against me.”

That was as good a description of what had happened between them as any, Constantine knew. So why did he dislike it so intensely?

“If I’d wished for you to be sixteen again, I would hardly insist on your nudity,” he pointed out. “It would muddy the retroactive teenage waters, don’t you think?”

“Constantine.” And Molly shook her head at him as if she’d expected better. “How could you possibly imagine that the same approach would work on me twice?”

“I am only pointing out that I thought there were only the three versions of you. That sixteen-year-old girl, you, and the role you play as Magda. I had no idea how many other versions of you there were.”

“Maybe there’s only one version,” she replied, her cool blue gaze somehow filling him with fire. “Maybe you’re the one who splintered into a hundred pieces, so long ago you think everyone else did the same.”

“I am not the one with an alter ego, Magda,” he said, with a laugh.

But she only smiled.

And then the food arrived, thankfully, before he could chase down whatever he saw in that gaze of hers that left him feeling... Edgy.

They ate in the lantern light. Perfectly grilled fish, local delicacies, and a few of Constantine’s favorite forms of comfort food. Spanakopita. Saganaki. Honey-drenched sweets and strong coffee to finish. Far below, the sea threw itself at the cliffs and up above, the Greek summer sky put on a show as the stars beamed down.

And it had been ten days, yet Constantine—who had long regarded himself as wholly irresistible to women, because he had yet to meet one who had not said so herself—was no closer to demolishing this woman than he had been before she’d arrived on the island.

That was the trouble, he told himself. That was why he did not feel quite himself. She was proving to be far harder to crack than he’d anticipated.

“How did you get into modeling in the first place?” he asked.

Her gaze flicked to him, looking something like amused. “Small talk? Really? I was wandering around your house today, naked from head to toe, and you think small talk is the appropriate response?”

“Is it that you cannot answer the question or that you do not wish to?” was his cool response.

She shrugged, managing to make even that a kind of pointed blade. “A modeling agent approached me on the Tube. I was eighteen and foolish enough to go around to the address on the card he gave me. That’s it. That’s the story. It was all fairly cut and dried, I’m afraid.”

“But you must connect the dots for me.” Constantine toyed with the stem of his wineglass. “Because the girl who left Skiathos would never have imagined that anyone could consider her modeling material.”

He did not know what he liked about the arctic blast he got from her then. Only that he did.

“You saw to that, didn’t you?”

“I saw to it?” He sat back in his chair, taking his wine with him. “I’m guilty of a great many things, Molly, but I do not recall putting together a campaign against your... What is it you accuse me of? Your self-confidence?”

“But of course you did,” she replied, with a certain simplicity that seemed to slice into him. “It was your only goal, I assume. That and extracting private sentiments from me that you could sell to the tabloids.”

“I never sold anything to the tabloids,” he replied.

It was true. He’d given away those stories for free.

“I’m actually delighted to have the opportunity to discuss this with you,” she said, with a strange light in her eyes, propping her elbows on the table between them. “I used to dream about doing this, though when I did,