by Julia James
To very good effect.
His eyes swept over her, warming with rich appreciation. An LBD—classic style—skimmed her tall, slender body flawlessly. She wore it with an evening jacket lightly embroidered in silver thread, adorned with a long silver necklace and matching bracelets. Her hair was upswept, which lengthened her graceful neck, enhancing an elegance that was rounded off by high heels that gave her an amazing sashaying walk as she approached.
Thee mou, but she was beautiful! To think she had clutched that damnable bucket and mop and scrubbed filthy floors!
Even as he thought about it, another thought gelled in his mind.
She never will again—never!
Whatever it took to convince her to accept his proposal, he would do it. She deserved no less.
And nor do I.
He felt that low-frequency purring start inside him as she came up to him. This beautiful woman, whose existence he had known of for only four days, had blown him away.
He got to his feet, greeting her warmly, letting the glow in his eyes show his appreciation of her.
It was having an effect, he could see—the very effect he wanted.
She wasn’t impervious to him—he knew that with absolute certainty. He’d seen that revealing flare in her eyes, try to conceal it as she might. And when they’d been in London he had sensed, with his very well-honed male instinct and his considerable experience of her sex, that she was as appreciative of him as he was of her, however offhand her manner had been.
But that initial deliberate indifference to him—caused, he thought ruefully, by his own guarded behaviour towards her, because he’d been unwilling to disabuse her about her father and unwilling to admit to himself how drawn he was to her—was all gone now. There was no longer any need for it.
He felt the purring inside him heighten. Now they could give their sensual awareness of each other full rein.
It was there right now—he could tell—in that flaring of her pupils as he smiled in welcome. In the flaring that was echoed in his own eyes. In the quickening of his pulse...
Impulse took over. An unstoppable urge. Without full consciousness of what he was doing, only male instinct possessing him, he caught her hand, rested his other hand lightly on her slender waist.
‘You look fantastic!’ he breathed. His voice was husky, again unconsciously—he couldn’t help it. His eyes moved over her face, taking in just how exquisitely lovely she looked, gazing at him now, wide-eyed, unconsciously inviting...
That low-frequency purr intensified. Became irresistible...
His mouth dipped to hers...
It was the lightest of kisses—the softest brushing of his mouth on hers, lasting only seconds. The merest fleeting sensation...the merest sip of the honey of her silken lips... The kind of kiss any man could greet any woman with in public.
And yet he had to use every ounce of his self-control to draw back from her, to smile down at her and release her hand, her waist, help her to take a seat. He could see that her face had flushed, her colour heightened and the low purring inside him was glad of this visible evidence of her response to him.
Of his to her he needed no second proof. Desire rushed through him. And an absolute certainty that the half-crazy idea he had blurted out to her that afternoon to stop her fleeing back to London, to the grim, bleak life she lived there—the impulsive offer that, despite his original determination to have nothing to do whatsoever with Stavros’s English daughter, had seemed the most obvious thing to make—was, in fact, the one idea he longed to make happen... He wanted to make her his.
He resumed his own seat, his eyes never leaving her. Her gaze had dipped and she was busying herself smoothing a napkin over her lap, the colour gradually subsiding from her flushed cheeks. Xandros knew he needed to put her at ease with him. There would be time enough to make clear to her just how he felt...
‘I thought it best to dine here at the hotel,’ he opened. ‘The food is excellent and I thought you might like the view.’
He gestured to the picture windows, which opened on to a terrace beyond. He heard her breath catch with delight as she looked past him to see what he was indicating: the ultimate symbol of Athens, spotlit as it always was by night.
‘The Acropolis!’ she breathed, with wonder in her voice, leaning forward to maximise her view.
‘And the Parthenon on top of it,’ he supplied.
Her face had lit up, enhancing her beauty, and as she gazed at the vista Xandros gazed at her face. One thought only blazed in him: whatever it took to convince her to accept his proposal, he must do it.
He could tell that her presence here with him was drawing eyes. Not because he was dining with a beautiful woman—Athens society was well used to that—but because up until recently the woman he’d been dining with had been Ariadne Coustakis.
And that, he realised, thinking it through rapidly, was yet another bonus to be gained from going through with the plan that he’d put to Stavros’s English daughter that afternoon.
It will give me a highly acceptable explanation for why my relationship with Ariadne is no more. A totally unexpected coup de foudre when I met her half-sister led her to release me from our engagement.
The tale would play well, and it would silence any speculation arising from his precipitate marriage to another woman. He did not want Rosalie to be the butt of gossip.
He realised she was talking.
‘It looks so close...the Acropolis!’
‘It’s quite some distance away, really—it looks close because there are no high-rise buildings between here and it,’ he replied. ‘Many buildings have a view over it—my apartment does,’ he said.
He started to tell her about the extensive ruins of classical times, both on the Acropolis and at its base, and then went on to describe some of the geography of the city itself—the different areas from Plaka to Syntagma Square.
She listened with interest, asking questions, increasingly relaxed as their dinner arrived, sipping at her wine.
‘I must buy myself a guide book,’ she said. A shadow crossed her face. ‘It seems sad that I know absolutely nothing about a city that I should have known all my life—’
She broke off, took another mouthful of her wine.
‘It isn’t too late to learn to love your Greek heritage,’ Xandros said quietly.
He left it at that—let the thought gel, take root. He left unspoken, for now, the corollary... If you marry me...
Throughout dinner he kept the conversation and the mood casual, easily friendly, and it served his purpose well. For all the privations of her deprived upbringing she was obviously not unintelligent—just ignorant of a great deal of what he took for granted. But she held her own, asked good questions, showed a sensitivity that he appreciated.
‘I know there’s a fuss about the Elgin Marbles being in the British Museum,’ she ventured, ‘but I don’t really understand why.’
‘Because,’ Xandros informed her sternly, ‘they are not the “Elgin” Marbles at all—they are the Parthenon Marbles! The problem is,’ he went on, ‘that Lord Elgin acquired them in good faith—but from an authority that did not own them in the first place. From the Ottoman government of Greece at the time.’
She wrinkled her brow. ‘Ottoman...?’
‘The foreign empire from Asia Minor that conquered the Middle East and the ancient Byzantine Empire in the fifteenth century—and ruled Greece for four hundred years until we finally shook them off! It was a dark time for Greece. A dark time,’ he added, ‘for my family.’
She looked at him questioningly.
‘My family goes back a long way,’ he supplied. ‘Back to the Byzantine Empire itself—the empire that succeeded the Roman Empire at the start of the Dark Ages for Western Europe. Here in the east the light of civilisation continued to burn, and the Byzantine capital, Constantinople
—modern-day Istanbul—was one of the greatest cities on earth!’
She frowned, and he realised he needed to explain something more to her.
‘It’s because my family can trace its roots so far back,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘that your father—who, by his own admission, is a completely self-made man—is so keen on marrying his family into it.’
He saw Rosalie’s expression change.
‘He threw it at me,’ she said. ‘The fact that I would be marrying “a lordly Lakaris.”’
Xandros’s mouth twisted. ‘Was that before or after he threatened to throw you out, still as penniless as he’d deliberately kept you all your life, if you didn’t do what he wanted?’
He shook his head, dismissing his own question. If Stavros’s daughter married him it would not be at her father’s bidding—let alone because of his financial blackmail.
‘But we don’t need to consider your father at all,’ he said with a dismissive shrug. ‘After the despicable way he’s treated you he deserves no consideration! What we do is our business—not his.’
He saw Rosalie’s expression flicker momentarily, and then a questioning look in her eye.
‘Are you really “lordly”?’ she asked.
Did her question indicate reservations? Xandros shook his head again. ‘Not for centuries!’ he said lightly. ‘The Byzantine Empire ceased to exist over five hundred years ago!’
She frowned again. ‘I thought there was a king of Greece at some time. Isn’t there a royal family somewhere?’
‘In exile,’ Xandros explained. ‘But it was never actually Greek. The family is an offshoot of the Danish royal family, installed when Greece got its freedom from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century. There are links to the last of the Byzantine imperial dynasties, but very distant. Not involving my family at all.’
It seemed irrelevant to add that during the era of the Greek monarchy his forebears had been courtiers—those times were long gone now. His thoughts darkened. Besides, it had been during the final post-war phase of the monarchy that his grandfather, with close personal links to the royals, had lived so extravagantly and recklessly, creating a financial precipice that had nearly bankrupted the family.
As his grandson, he was still intent on ensuring such danger would never again threaten the Lakaris fortunes. And it was that intention that was the driver for this Coustakis merger that his father had recommended as the best way forward. The lucrative merger to which the exquisitely beautiful woman opposite him was now key.
It will work—the plan that I have come up with! It will placate Stavros, convince him to agree to the merger. It won’t tie me permanently in marriage, and yet it will give me all the time I want with this most desirable of women...
Now all he had to do was convince her to accept him and claim her for his own...
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROSALIE STIRRED, STRETCHING her limbs in the wide bed, waking slowly. She had slept so much better than on that night of nerve-racked tossing and turning she had spent in that over-gilded bed in her father’s over-gilded mansion. Then, her dreams had been fitful, filled with seesawing hopes and apprehension. But last night they had been very different.
They had been filled not with anxious imaginings of her forthcoming encounter with her long-lost father, which bitter reality had sent crashing and burning into oblivion, but with memories of the afternoon she had spent with Alexandros Lakaris.
And their evening together.
And his kiss on greeting her...
She felt a melting within her as memory replayed that moment—how his mouth had dipped to hers, brushing with exquisite lightness the tender swell of her lips.
So brief...so magical...
And so entirely unexpected.
Because nothing in his behaviour towards her till that moment had given her cause to think that he was thinking of her in those terms.
Oh, she’d seen the stunned expression on his face when she’d sailed out of that hotel restaurant in London, glitzed to the hilt after her shopping spree. And it had been gratifying not to be Little Miss Invisible to him any more, after his obvious disdain for the way she’d looked when he’d found her.
But after complimenting her on her improved appearance—it would have been difficult for him to have ignored the difference all those beauty treatments and a designer outfit had made to her!—he’d reverted to his earlier attitude: impersonal to the point of indifferent. And he’d clearly been glad to be shot of her when he’d dropped her off at her father’s house and driven off immediately.
But she’d been wrong about him. Quite wrong.
More memory pushed into her head. How she’d sobbed all over him in her rage and misery when he’d found her fleeing her father’s house the next day...how comforting he’d been. How kind and sympathetic. She heard his words again, as he explained to her just why he’d brought her to Athens, how shocked he’d been to find her living the way she’d had to in London.
‘How could I leave you there like that?’ he’d said.
She felt her throat tighten.
I thought him brusque and uncaring—but he isn’t! He isn’t at all.
There was a warmth in him she had never suspected. Just as she had never expected that kiss last evening.
Memory came full circle and it played again in her head, tantalising and beguiling...
But had it meant anything?
It was just a kiss in public. He probably kisses every woman he dines with. Especially a woman he wants to persuade to marry him.
And there it was—centre-stage in her head—the one thing she had to think about. Marrying Alexandros Lakaris for six months to their mutual financial benefit.
Emotions, thoughts, churned inside her. Could she really do it? Do what Xandros was urging her to do?
She lay there, staring up at the ceiling, thinking through the implications. For six months she would be Alexandros Lakaris’s wife—dressed up to the nines, enjoying the kind of luxury she had never dreamt would come her way in all her life! She would be living here in Greece, exploring the heritage she had never known.
Suddenly there was a bleakness in her eyes. She would not have a chance to get to know that heritage if she went back to her poverty-stricken life in London. How long would it take her to earn enough money to come back to Athens? Even when she eventually got a half-decent job once she had some qualifications?
Her expression shadowed. This time yesterday she had thought it would be through her father that she would experience her Greek heritage. Now it might be through Xandros.
And would that be unwelcome?
The answer was there as soon as she asked the question. Of course not! How could it be?
She knew now that he was far kinder than she’d originally thought him, and angered on her behalf by her father’s callousness. That must surely warm her towards him. Plus, she knew simply from the time she’d spent with him so far that he was easy to be with, interesting to talk to, good-humoured and well informed—without being in the least patronising about her lack of knowledge in things he took for granted thanks to his privileged background.
And then, of course, there was the most obvious, inescapable fact of all about how it would be if she accepted the extraordinary proposal he’d made to her.
The fact that a single glance from those incredible, dark, gold-flecked, long-lashed eyes of his could make her pulse race in ways she had never known... The fact that she just wanted to gaze and gaze at his absolute male perfection...drink in everything about him...
And how could she not be smitten with her limited experience? It had always been difficult, even impossible, looking after her poor, frail mother as she had, to have any kind of social life...any kind of romance... How could anyone compare with Xandros?
From the very first she had acknowledged his searing impact on
her. How could it be otherwise? He was the stuff of dreams, of fantasies... But could she—would she—make them real?
And would he?
If she were really to go ahead and marry him, then what would he expect? Or want...? What would she want?
Even as she formed the questions the answers were there, in the quickening of her blood as she replayed, yet again, the soft, sensuous touch of his mouth on hers. It had engendered within her an ache, a yearning for something more... Oh, so much more!
The phone beside her bed started to ring, interrupting her hectic thoughts. She picked it up. It was Xandros.
‘Hi,’ he said.
His voice was warm and friendly. And good to hear.
‘Have you had breakfast yet? If not, how about brunch by the hotel pool? In half an hour?’
* * *
‘So...’ Xandros eyed her carefully as they sat at a table in the poolside bistro. ‘Do you think you’ve reached a decision yet?’
He didn’t want to pressurise her, but...
I want her to say yes.
Watching her, he was glad he was wearing sunglasses, for it gave him the opportunity to study her without her being aware of it. He was even more sure of what he wanted. He hadn’t seen her yet in leisurewear, and now that he was it was every bit as rewarding as seeing her in more formal daywear and evening wear.
The short, above-the-knee sundress in a swirling pattern of yellow and blue, its halter neck exposing her graceful shoulders, looked good on her. More than good. Her hair was not upswept this morning, but pulled back into a simple ponytail, and the long, lush sweep of it curved over her bare shoulder. She was wearing make-up, but minimal—just mascara, a trace of eyeliner and lip gloss. She looked fresh, natural...and breathtakingly lovely.
His mind went back to the way she’d looked that first day—with dirt smeared on her face and hollows under her eyes, fatigue in every line of her body.
Never again—never!