The Greek's Penniless Cinderella

by Julia James

  Stavros’s daughter.

  Rosalie Jones.

  Shock jarred Xandros—the same level of shock he’d felt yesterday, when she’d announced her name to him, but for the totally opposite reason now.

  Because now, as she sailed up to him, there was only one word to describe her.

  Stunning. Just...stunning.

  Unbelievably so.

  His eyes raked over her, taking in every detail of her amazingly displayed beauty. Oh, he’d got hints of it last night, but now...in all her new finery, with her face perfectly made up, her hair fabulous, her figure fully revealed in that close-fitting outfit and her legs lengthened with those four-inch heels...now she was a revelation.

  A stunning revelation.

  Deep inside, he felt that same low, insistent purr that had come from nowhere last night when he’d seen her in her towelling robe. It was starting up in him again. Much more strongly... But this time, in the face of that incredible full-on beauty of hers, there was no chance of silencing it. Nor, he realised, did he want to. What he wanted was to enjoy the sheer, raw masculine pleasure of watching this totally stunning female walk up to him. Around her, he could see other male heads turning, and a primeval satisfaction filled him. Of all the men present in the hotel lobby, whether guest or staff, it was him whom she was heading towards...

  It felt good. And he didn’t care why.

  She stopped in front of him. ‘So, are we off?’ she enquired briskly.

  He gave a start, realising that he must stop just gazing fixedly at her.

  ‘To the airport?’ she prompted. She glanced towards the reception desk. ‘I checked out before lunch,’ she went on. ‘The concierge has taken my old suitcase into storage. I’d better get the new ones,’ she said.

  She sashayed off to the concierge’s desk, and Xandros paused for a moment to revel in the sight of her rear view. Her perfectly formed rear view...

  He kept it in sight as they left the hotel and she got into the waiting car. Inside, as he took his place beside her, he let his gaze go to her face.

  ‘So, you went shopping, I see?’ he said, his voice dry. It would be sensible, he told himself, to stay low-key about this.

  She turned towards him, and a waft of expensive perfume came his way as she did so. ‘Oh, yes! It was fabulous!’

  Just as it had the previous night, a showstopping smile lit up her face. And, just as it had last night, Xandros’s breath caught.

  ‘The personal shopper was brilliant—she knew exactly what would suit me and saved me a ton of time!’ Rosalie Jones was enthusing.

  Xandros allowed his glance to wash over her. It was enjoyable to let it do so. ‘You look,’ he said, ‘very good.’

  He felt a wash of pleasure go through him at the fact that he had ensured she had at least been able to indulge her a little after what had been, till now, a punishingly deprived life.

  ‘I want to look my best for my father,’ she was saying now, in answer to his compliment.

  Her expression wavered for a moment, and there was a show of anxiety in it.

  ‘I want him to be proud of me,’ she said. ‘To be pleased he’s discovered I exist after all these years of not knowing. I only wish my poor mother had lived to see this day. How thrilled she’d have been!’

  With an effort, dragging his attention away from her, taking in what she’d just said, Xandros kept his expression neutral. It was hard to hear her getting it so pitifully wrong about the callous and neglectful man who had fathered her. Hard to hear just how tough her life had been.

  ‘Poor Mum!’ she went on now, sadness in her voice. ‘She only knew my father for such a short while and then he was gone. She couldn’t trace him, so he never knew about me.’

  She bit her lip again, her hands twisting over her brand-new elegant leather handbag.

  ‘Knowing now that he’s been successful in his life, it seems so dreadful that he didn’t know about us before now. My mother’s health was never good, and we had to survive on state benefits because she wasn’t well enough to work, and I had to look after her... It was always a struggle. Always—’

  She broke off, glancing at him.

  ‘It meant I couldn’t get a job either, or even any college education.’ She gave a half-defiant shrug, ‘That’s why I have to do the work I’m doing. I’m living as cheaply as I can, saving as much money as I can. I’ve started evening classes...an online course—’

  She broke off again, her expression changing.

  ‘But now everything’s changed! Now everything’s going to be wonderful!’

  The sadness had vanished from her voice and her face had brightened. She rested her gaze on Xandros, looking at him expectantly. Ruthlessly, he kept his own gaze inexpressive by sheer effort of will, though her sorry tale of all she’d been through had stung him.

  I should tell her what Stavros is like! I should tell her not to push her hopes too high! Not to pin them on him at all!

  But he could not bring himself to see her crash down so brutally.

  And she’s not my problem—not my concern!

  That was what he had to remember. He slammed the stern instruction into himself. Just as he had to remember that, however amazing she looked—and he had not expected her to look anything like that—he should keep his instinctive male reaction to her firmly checked. It was at the very least...irrelevant.

  I’m just taking her to Stavros—that’s all.

  And as for that—well, however much of a crushing disappointment Stavros Coustakis would turn out to be, even having a father like Stavros was better than the life she’d been leading up till now, wasn’t it?

  She’ll get something from him, surely? Even if it takes lawyers or the tabloids to screw it out of him!

  She was speaking again now, and he realised she’d asked a question. A question he didn’t want to answer.

  ‘So, how did he find out about me?’

  Xandros’s expression shuttered even more. ‘Like I said yesterday, that’s a discussion for you to have with him.’

  To his relief, she only nodded, and moved on to another question.

  ‘What else can you tell me about him? You said he’s been successful in life, but in what way?’

  ‘Construction, mostly,’ Xandros answered, relieved the topic had moved on. ‘But he’s branched out since—insurance, financing...that kind of thing. He’s a very shrewd businessman.’

  ‘I’m glad for him,’ she said. Then she paused, her expression changing, her manicured hands playing with the strap of her soft leather bag. She frowned. ‘What about...well, his personal life? You see,’ she went on in a rush, ‘it’s dawned on me that...that I might not be his only offspring!’

  She lifted her eyes to Xandros—Stavros’s distinctive grey-green eyes.

  ‘Is he married?’ she asked. There was a nervousness in her voice that he could actually hear.

  He shook his head. ‘He’s widowed. His wife died some years ago. But...’ He paused. ‘But they had a daughter. A few years younger than you. Ariadne.’

  He saw her eyes widen.

  ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I have a sister! Oh, you don’t know how wonderful that sounds! Will I meet her?’

  Xandros shook his head again. ‘She’s abroad at the moment.’ He tried not to sound evasive.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame! I hope... I hope she won’t mind having a sister...’

  Xandros’s expression tightened. Who knew what Ariadne would think about this unknown daughter of her father arriving out of nowhere?

  ‘Do you know her? My sister?’

  The artless question was unanswerable. Not without explanations he had no intention of giving. So he only nodded, and to his relief realised his phone was ringing.

  With a murmured ‘Excuse me...’ he answered it, grateful for the reprieve.

 
It was a reprieve he kept going till they arrived at Heathrow. Wading into the grim details of Stavros Coustakis’s Machiavellian machinations was not something he was prepared to do.

  He glanced sideways at the daughter Stavros had summoned to take the place of the daughter he’d disowned.

  She’ll cope with the situation when she discovers it—she’ll have to!

  And whether she would cope or not—whichever it was—it was not his problem and not his business. Because, for all his impulsive decision to take Rosalie Jones out to Greece to claim what she could of the heritage she’d been denied all her life, on one thing he remained adamant. Nothing—absolutely nothing—would induce him to fall in with her father’s ludicrous plan for him to marry Ariadne’s sister just to achieve the merger he was set on.

  However stunningly beautiful she’d turned out to be...and however hard it was to drag his eyes from her...

  * * *

  Tiredness was lapping at Rosalie. Though it had been absolutely fantastic to enjoy her very first plane flight in first class, where champagne and a gourmet dinner had been served, and she’d loved nestling into her soft, capacious leather seat, flicking through complimentary high-fashion magazines as if to the manor born, the flight had been long and they’d landed in near darkness.

  Greece, she’d discovered, was two hours ahead of the UK, and it would be nearly another hour before they arrived at her father’s. He lived, so Alexandros Lakaris had informed her when she’d asked, in one of the most exclusive suburbs of Athens.

  She couldn’t wait to get there! To finally meet her father! But even all her excited anticipation couldn’t stop her energy levels dropping away as they drove away from the airport. She felt flat, suddenly, and out of nowhere apprehensive.

  ‘We’re nearly there now.’

  The voice at her side made her turn her head from peering out of the car window, though there wasn’t much to be seen outside. It was so strange to think that she was in a foreign land.

  But it isn’t foreign! That’s the whole point! It’s the land of my father, and I’m as much Greek as I am British!

  Yet as she made out the road signs in Greek lettering, and all the shopfronts, the traffic driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, it all seemed very alien.

  The car was turning off the busy main road now, nosing down quieter roads that became spacious and tree-lined and less brightly lit by street lamps. At either side high walls girded the mansions hidden behind them, glimpsed only through steel gates. The car turned again, down yet another wide avenue, and then slowed in front of a pair of steel electronic gates. The driver spoke into a grille, and the gates swung open.

  Rosalie felt her nerves tauten, her hands clutching at her handbag on her lap. The car moved slowly forward, over a crunching gravel carriage sweep, to pull up at the entrance to a white-fronted mansion, with wide steps leading up to huge double doors. The driver was getting out, opening her door.

  She turned to the man who had brought her here, lifting her out of her grim, grinding, cheerless life in the East End of London to deposit her here at her father’s house.

  ‘Thank you for bringing me,’ she said.

  She made her voice bright, though she didn’t feel bright. She felt nervous, but she wouldn’t let it show.

  Just like I didn’t let it show that I could see, when I sailed out of the restaurant at the hotel, that he was finally changing his mind about me! That I finally wasn’t invisible to him!

  It had been a good moment, a gratifying one, and she had relished it. But it seemed a long time ago now.

  Besides, what does it matter whether I’m invisible to him or not? Or that he’s so incredible-looking? So what? It’s my father I’ve come here for.

  With a movement as graceful as she could make it, she got out of the car, gazing up at the imposing frontage of the house.

  My father’s home.

  She tried to feel the excitement she should be feeling, but the nervous flatness that had come over her since landing was still paramount. She could hear the driver extracting the suitcases with all her expensive new clothes in them. The front door was opening—was this her father coming out to greet her? The father whom she had never known, who had never known about her...

  But it was just a manservant in a white jacket, ushering her indoors with a murmur in Greek she didn’t understand. Rosalie cast a look back at the car, where the driver was resuming his seat, and raised a brief hand in farewell to the man who had brought her here... Alexandros Lakaris.

  Did he respond? The tinted windows made it impossible to know. And then the car was moving off around the carriage sweep, disappearing through the gates.

  She turned and went inside her father’s house.

  She felt suddenly very alone.

  * * *

  Xandros sat back in his seat. For a moment, just before she’d walked up the steps, he’d had to suppress an impulse to get out and go in with her. Not to let that hapless girl face Stavros Coustakis all on her own.

  He drew a breath. She wasn’t his concern, and she certainly wasn’t his responsibility. Rosalie Jones had entered his life briefly and now she had left it again. He would keep it that way and get back to his own life.

  He lightened his expression determinedly. After Ariadne’s rejection he’d felt a sense of freedom. He should heed it. He hadn’t wanted to tie himself down—not in his heart of hearts—and now he wasn’t going to.

  As the car headed back into central Athens he let his mind play with pleasurable anticipation upon just how...and with whom!...he would celebrate this happy new freedom, enjoying the kind of affairs he was used to enjoying—the kind that never lasted and never led to anything longer than a few months.

  His mind drifted over various females of his acquaintance, each of them a beauty, each of them, he knew from long experience, not averse to any sign of interest from him.

  He felt an unwelcome frown form on his forehead, and his fingers started to tap impatiently on the armrest. There was one problem he was encountering in his mental parade of willing beauties. Not a single one of them held any allure for him whatsoever. And into his mind’s eye was intruding one that did.

  A showstopping figure, a cinched-in waist, endless legs, long, waving blonde hair...and grey-green eyes.

  He slammed his thoughts shut. No—that was not going to happen...

  Definitely, definitely not.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ROSALIE LOOKED ABOUT HERSELF. It was a bedroom. She’d been shown up to it by the manservant, followed by two maids who’d started to unpack her suitcases until Rosalie had halted them. She was not comfortable with people waiting on her hand and foot.

  She turned now to the manservant. ‘When will I be seeing my father?’ she asked in what she hoped was a casual fashion, hoping he spoke English.

  He did, with a strong accent, but his words filled Rosalie with surprise and dismay.

  ‘Kyrios Coustakis is out this evening,’ he informed her in lofty tones. ‘You will see him in the morning.’

  She opened her mouth to speak, but now more maids were coming in, bringing in a dinner tray and coffee. The manservant bowed, and took his leave along with all the maids.

  Rosalie stared at the door he’d shut behind him and felt a headache coming on. Tiredness snapped at her. Maybe, she thought, it was better that she postpone her all-important first encounter with her father till the morning, when she’d be fresher.

  But the flatness that had assailed her since landing did not abate, even after she went to have a shower in what proved to be a highly opulent en suite bathroom, with gold taps and shower fittings and patterned marble on the walls.

  Padding out into the bedroom, wrapped in a bath towel, she could see the room’s opulence was just as lavish—there was gilding everywhere, from the bedframe and bedside table lamps to the gold-threaded drapes an
d massive chandelier.

  The effect was... She puckered her brow. Oppressive.

  With a sigh she sat herself down to pick at the food on an equally gilded tray. Lifting the silver dome revealed chicken in a very rich sauce, fried potatoes and beans. Though she felt bad about it, she couldn’t face any of it, and soon replaced the dome, settling for just a bread roll and some strange-tasting butter. The coffee was strange, too—very thick, full of grounds, and there wasn’t enough milk.

  A wave of homesickness swept over her. Not for the festering bedsit she’d lived in till yesterday, but for the council flat where she’d grown up, where it had been just the two of them—she and her poor, frail, ill mum, all that each other had had, the two of them against the world, alone in the little flat. It had been small and shabby, and paying the bills and putting food on the table had always been a grim challenge, where every penny had done the work of two, but it had been home...

  But this is home now. My father’s home. My home.

  The word hung strangely in the centre of her consciousness. Home? Was that what this huge, over-opulent, servant-staffed house was to be for her now?

  She felt a heavy sigh escape her. One that should not have. For surely coming here, to her father, would be the best thing that had ever happened to her?

  As she went to climb into the huge too-soft bed, with its satin sheets that were too slippery, she made herself imagine their meeting tomorrow. Made it vivid in her mind.

  He’ll sweep me into his arms! Hug me close! Tears in his eyes and mine! And it will be wonderful! Oh, so wonderful!

  As sleep closed over her she wanted to dream of it—dream of the magical meeting that awaited her. But the dreams that came were not of her unknown father. They were of the man he’d sent to fetch her. Who meant nothing to her—nothing at all.