So why couldn’t she?
But you have already, an arrogant voice sounding quite like Dmitri said.
And it was as if the entire world remained the same chaotic, sometimes utterly soul-crushing, sometimes gorgeously life-giving mystery that it was, but it was how she looked at it, how she looked at herself that underwent a seismic shift.
Even through the darkest, coldest, most depressing night of her life in the past decade, she had never once accepted defeat, had never once surrendered herself to things beyond her control; she had never once let herself drown.
It would have been so easy to give in. She had had all the temptation. And with Dmitri, God, she’d had more than temptation.
But she had walked away. It had torn her in two but she had walked away, hadn’t she? And she had kept on walking.
She had stared her weakness in the eye and not only emerged from it unscathed, but she had made something out of herself. She had stood without flinching in the face of a cruel, unfamiliar world that seemed to be even more mercurial than her mother’s moods and stayed the course.
Despite the results to the contrary, why did she keep measuring herself by Andrew’s and her mother’s sins?
She was not them. She was Jasmine Douglas, former pole dancer, maybe model and something fiercer in the future.
She was stronger and she deserved any happiness she could get. And her happiness, oh, her very heart was with Dmitri. It would always be.
Everything changed as if floodgates had been opened.
She didn’t care that he wanted her because he thought she needed protection, that he did it out of guilt.
So what if he wasn’t willing to call it love? So what if he thought he was incapable of it?
He had protected her, cared for her, helped her emerge from her own shame; he had counted her worthy even before she had counted herself. If that wasn’t love... Every second she was with Dmitri, she lived and loved more than she had the rest of her life.
She had never given up before, even when the odds had been stacked high against her. Not on her brother, not on her mother, and now, she wouldn’t give up on the most important thing in her life—she wouldn’t give up on Dmitri.
She would prove to him how much he already loved her, even if it took her the rest of her life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONCE SHE HAD made up her mind, Jasmine couldn’t bear to wait another minute before she went to see Dmitri. Even worse was the fact that he was in the same city yet so far away from her.
It took her another week to finish her current photo shoot and find a free day, so close to Christmas. Another day then to drum up enough guts to ask Stavros, when she saw him, about Dmitri’s whereabouts.
He was in London, Stavros had said pithily. When she had probed as to why, he had muttered, “Personal business.” Jasmine had a feeling Stavros hadn’t wanted to give out any information at all.
When she had asked him, tethering her desperation just by the skin of her teeth, when he would return, he had said today. When Leah had glared at him, he had added that he would return to his Athens flat because they had a superimportant deal he was finalizing to talk about.
Jasmine had barely held her curiosity in check, because she wanted to know what deal was so important two days before Christmas and what Dmitri’s personal business was, because it was sure as hell not about her, and not with Leah or Stavros because they had both been in Athens the past week.
Acknowledging that nothing was going to make what she had to do easier, she showered that afternoon and dressed in black pencil jeans and a royal blue sleeveless silk shirt that highlighted her physique without hugging. She paired the blouse with a sleekly cut white jacket. Black pumps and her hair in a French braid and she was ready to go.
Wouldn’t you have a better chance if you were dressed to attract his attention? a devilish voice inside whispered, but she shushed it.
She wanted them to talk rationally. She wanted to tell him everything she had thought of, and dressing demurely would help.
Dmitri’s flat turned out to be a penthouse on a pedestrian street in the city center of Athens, only a short walk from an art gallery and a lively café where she had spent more than a few hours gathering courage and drinking far too much of the dark, thick Greek coffee.
Wired and anxious was not a good combination, her stomach decided, going on a downward dive while the lift took her to the seventh floor.
A landscaped atrium was across the entrance, revealing breathtaking views of the Acropolis and Lycabettus Hill on either side. Early-afternoon sunlight amplified the open plan.