Full of integrity and honor, Stavros had taught him so much. But right now, he was the last man Dmitri wanted to see because he wouldn’t lie to spare Dmitri’s feelings. He wouldn’t spare anyone, especially when it came to doing the right thing.
“You seduced her, didn’t you?” Stavros finally said, sounding utterly disgusted.
Gritting his jaw tight, Dmitri strove to calm himself. He would not lose it tonight, not again.
“Before you lose it, your little temper tantrum was witnessed by everyone at the party. Then you followed her and neither of you emerged for the rest of the night. Leah was worried about her.” The bastard went on, unperturbed. “The interesting thing is that you’re pacing here in the middle of the night. Which means at least you feel some regret.”
“She was a pole dancer at that club.”
The statement fell into the dark silence like a grenade waiting to be detonated. His gaze stunned, Stavros looked as though he was out of words.
“That’s not the worst,” Dmitri added. He needed to fix the situation, but for the life of him, he still couldn’t hate himself for what had happened.
“What is, then?”
“She...she’s full of shame over it, still just as stubborn, however, she’s very vulnerable to me, some kind of leftover from our past together—” God only knew why “—and now I seduced her, yes. So it’s a lot worse. If I had known how much she—”
“Theos, Dmitri, don’t start lying to yourself now.”
Dmitri felt it like a lash, loathing Stavros for being right.
He would have taken Jas come what may. That he had even resisted that long was a miracle in itself.
But he could not simply walk away from her. To do so would mean to torture himself eternally about whether she was safe. About who she was with, if there was another man who had taken over his place in her life, whether that man was worthy of her, if he would treat her well...
Christos!
And the thought of Jasmine with any other man but him, the thought of any man taking that smile, that double-edged innocence, of any man kissing her or learning that sensuous body of hers... It drove him crazy.
He had never ever felt this possessive about a woman, only a cold detachment. At most, sympathy when it had come to Anya.
He knew that Jasmine hadn’t given herself to him lightly, and telling her that it was a night of madness for him would only hurt her.
And he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t hurt Jasmine, not when there had been a hundred people in her life who had only ever done that.
The solution, the only solution to the tangle of mess he had created, came to him slowly, quite simple in its brilliance.
His heart seemed to freeze for a moment, and then stuttered into life, pounding even harder after that pause.
“I know what to do,” he said softly, the idea settling into his every pore, every cell, sinking into him deep. Tilting the very axis of his life. But he didn’t feel in the slightest bit worried. It was perfect for the situation he had created, the right thing finally.
His austere features bathed in shadows, Stavros, if possible, became even tenser. “And what would that be?”
Dmitri sighed, wishing he could walk away without answering his question, without giving a damn. But try as he might, he had never been able to wrench that detachment for Stavros.
Giannis had done a fine job of making them more than brothers. He had made them each other’s conscience. “I’ll not hurt her, Stavros.”
“There’s more than one way of hurting, Dmitri. I stole five years of her life, five years that I can never return, from Leah. Don’t be so blindly arrogant as I was to decide her fate for Jasmine.”
“I’m not forcing her into anything, Stavros.”
He would not force Jas. He would only give her what would make her happy, do what he should have done all those years ago. He owed Andrew that much, despite Andrew’s mistakes; he owed her that much. And it wasn’t as if he was making a huge sacrifice, either, when all he did was flit from woman to woman, trying to fill the emptiness he felt.
At least, with Jas, there would be the satisfaction of doing the right thing. At least, with Jas, there would be no emptiness. Not when she looked at him like that.
“Dmitri, I’m—”
Dmitri had had enough. He turned away from Stavros and went back to the house. For the first time in forever, he had found something that made him feel as though he was alive again. Something that helped him look in the mirror and see a worthy man.