“Stay,” he ordered her softly.
With his back still against the wardrobe, he extracted a perfectly pressed white cotton shirt with sure precision, shrugged off the bloodied shirt. Too mesmerized by the sight of his corded biceps and chest to even pretend otherwise, Jasmine watched as he pulled on the fresh shirt.
“I will sleep in the longue or order housekeeping to clean up Stavros’s room.” He buttoned it down, his gaze taking in her flushed face with a casual indifference. “Are you hungry?”
Getting up and padding away from the bed, she walked to the chaise longue. “No. And you don’t have to babysit me. I just want to crash for a few hours.”
“I have no interest in spending the night babysitting you. Tell me...how did Noah agree to this outrageous idea of an auction?”
“You know how.”
Another step closer. But caught between the bed and him, there was no way to escape. Retribution that he had threatened shone in every line of his body. “Dmitri...”
“Enlighten me again how it happened.”
“Even after all these years, we still owed him money. Noah would have liked for me to sign away my entire life and I didn’t want to continue—” a shudder went through her spine “—there anymore. I thought of you and suggested he put me up for auction.”
He stared down at her as if he could see through her skin and into the very heart of her. “Where was he going to find buyers if not for me?”
Something in his question struck a chord of fear in Jasmine. “There weren’t any others.”
“Noah is not famous for his kindness. I don’t understand how he agreed to your condition.”
“Because all the world knows that you’re a gazillionaire and Noah just happens to know that at one time you used to have a conscience. I gave him an opening to exploit that. If you’re through being disgusted with me—”
“Disgusted? Theos, what the hell was Andrew thinking to leave you with so much debt? Why didn’t he—”
Just hearing her brother judged for what little he could have done inflamed her. “Don’t speak his name.”
“He should have taken better care of you. I don’t understand—”
Shivering from head to toe, she struggled to keep the grief at bay. Even after five years, it shredded her strength and composure with its claws. “How do you know what he did or didn’t do? You left us.”
Was that it? Had she hated him all these years because he had left her alone with an alcoholic mother and a brother addicted to gambling away the very little they had ever had? Was her bitter envy over his better life at the root of it all?
“I didn’t have a choice, Jasmine.”
“You didn’t have a choice except to forget us? He always watched your back, stopped you from getting yourself killed. If not for him, you would have died a violent death a long time ago.”
Every inch of his face became immobile under her attack. He stood absolutely still, calmly absorbing her insults.
Only the haunting depths of his eyes betrayed his shock. “You think I need a reminder, Theos mou, that without Andrew, there would have been nothing left of me for Giannis to save...”
God, what the hell had she said?
The cynical curve of his mouth... The emptiness in his eyes... She never wanted to be witness to that ever again.
She didn’t want to see that flash of pain in his eyes ever again, much less cause it.
“That...that came out wrong. I just... I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve never...” She took a bracing breath. “Seeing you just reminds me that he’s forever gone, Dmitri. That he never had a single chance to break away from it all.”
He stepped away from her as if to avoid the poison of her words. “Until I can ensure that there’s no danger to you, you have no choice but to face me, Jasmine.” Still, he didn’t sound angry or upset. Still, he only spoke about her safety.
As if it was an onerous duty he had to take on even if she was ungrateful.
Jasmine wanted to kick herself for her impulsive mouth. Or curl into a ball and cry. In one swoop, she had spewed out all the bitterness she had struggled to keep at bay for years. She couldn’t bear to look at herself, much less at Dmitri. She couldn’t bear to be in his presence for a second longer without wanting to slap herself.
It was being near him, she realized. From the moment he had stepped in there, it was as if she had lost all sense of herself. It was as if she had forgotten all the hard lessons she had learned so early in life.