Instead she concentrated on changing into her own clothes, and deliberately ignored the other two models’ curiosity as she re-fastened her hair into a casually elegant knot at her nape.
She would have given anything to have slipped out of the side-door and make good her escape, but Jacqueline, Lexi knew, preferred her models to mix and mingle for at least ten minutes, during which she presented each with a fashion accessory for donating their time without fee to such a worthy cause.
The social conclusion to the afternoon gave her assistants time to discreetly collect payment and distribute purchases.
Perhaps Georg had already left, Lexi decided darkly, for only the strongest man would opt to stay in a room full of animated chattering women.
She was wrong, of course. Worse, he didn’t appear to be even vaguely ill at ease, and she took her time in joining him as she paused to talk with first one guest and then another as she slowly moved towards the door.
Eventually there was nowhere else for her to go, and she tilted her head slightly, centring her attention on the bridge of his aristocratic Grecian nose.
‘Georg.’ Her voice was a deliberately husky drawl, and she slanted one eyebrow in a gesture of teasing mockery. ‘What are you doing here?’
His features creased into a seemingly warm, intimate smile, and his eyes were so dark it was impossible to read their expression. ‘I patronise the charity organisation which benefits from this auction,’ he informed her, and, lifting a hand, he casually pushed a stray tendril of hair back behind her ear. ‘Knowing you were one of the models was sufficient incentive for me to put in a personal appearance.’
Dear heaven, he was good! Too damned good, she decided darkly, aware they were the focus of attention.
How had he known she’d be here this afternoon? David? As close as she was to her brother, she didn’t communicate to him her every move. Therefore Georg must have deliberately sought to discover her whereabouts. The thought rankled unbearably.
‘Another brilliantly calculated ploy?’ Lexi arched with deliberate softness, and saw his eyes narrow fractionally.
‘Five minutes,’ he cautioned quietly. ‘Then we’ll leave.’
A slow sweet smile widened her provocatively curved mouth. ‘Any longer and I won’t be able to sheathe my claws.’ She was so angry it was almost impossible to still the faint shakiness of her hand as she accepted a glass of chilled water from a dutiful waitress, and she kept her eyes veiled beneath long fringed lashes in an attempt to hide her true feelings.
If he so much as dared to present her with his purchases in front of all these women she’d be hard pressed not to throw them back at him!
A hollow laugh rose and died in her throat. It would be ironic if they weren’t for her at all. No matter how much she hated him, there could be no doubt he was held in considerable awe by members of the opposite sex.
‘You haven’t forgotten we’re dining with Jonathan this evening?’
Lexi spared him a level glance. ‘No.’ Thank heaven David would be there to act as a buffer, for sitting through an intimate family dinner would tax her acting ability to its very limit.
‘News of our…relationship has reached my mother.’ His eyes probed hers, seeing the faint flaring of defiance, the latent anger simmering beneath the surface of her control. ‘I have been severely chastised for not having brought you to meet her.’
Her fingers tightened round the stem of her glass, and she took a steadying breath. ‘I’m not sure I can stand such devotion to familial duty.’
‘Lexi! Georg!’
It was too much to hope that they might be left alone, and Lexi had to stop herself from physically flinching as the man at her side altered his stance so that his arm pressed against her shoulder.
‘Jacqueline,’ he acknowledged. ‘How are you?’
‘Absolutely fine, darling.’ Her smile was genuine, and she case Lexi a warm glance. ‘You were outstanding, as always. That touch of originality at the end was quite stunning.’ Her eyes lit with a hint of mischievous humour. ‘Georg was suitably appreciative.’
‘Overwhelmed,’ he drawled in musing acknowledgment as he extracted and handed Jacqueline his cheque. ‘And understandably anxious for a private encore.’
Lexi was dimly aware of Jacqueline’s tinkling laughter as she proffered two gold signature-emblazoned carrier-bags.
‘A lovely addition to your wardrobe, darling,’ Jacqueline accorded, and, leaning forward, she brushed her lips lightly against Lexi’s cheek. ‘I couldn’t be more delighted.’
Lexi had never felt more like screaming with vexation in her life. Yet she had to smile and pretend that Georg’s gift was warmly received. The moment they were alone, she promised herself, she would verbally slay him.
‘If you’ll excuse us, Jacqueline?’ Georg said smoothly.
Lexi murmured a farewell and followed it with a captivating smile, then she turned and preceded Georg from the boutique, waiting until they were on the pavement and at least ten paces from its doors before expelling a deep breath.
‘You were utterly impossible!’
‘Where are you parked?’
‘Don’t you dare ignore me!’ Frustrated anger filled her voice, and, even though she pitched it low, there could be no doubt as to the extent of her fury.
‘I have no intention of ignoring you,’ Georg replied with deceptive calm. ‘But the footpath of an exclusive shopping centre is hardly the place for a slanging match.’ He directed her a look that held infinite mockery. ‘Unless, of course, you have no objection to an audience of interested bystanders.’
‘Where would you suggest?’ she threw vengefully.
‘Your apartment,’ he drawled. ‘After which we’ll visit my mother and then join Jonathan for dinner.’
In a moment she’d erupt! ‘I’m sure your mother is delightful, but I’d rather delay meeting her for a few days if you don’t mind.’
‘Ah, but I do mind.’ He was so darned imperturbable that she felt like slapping him! ‘She is expecting us at five.’
‘You can call her and cancel.’ Lexi walked quickly along the street in an attempt to out-pace him, and it irked her unbearably that his stride appeared leisurely by comparison.
‘She is elderly and very fragile. She is also irascible, speaks her mind, and likes to have command over her children.’ His voice held musing affection. ‘We tend to indulge her.’
She reached the car park, and crossed to her silver Mercedes. ‘Your mother may have issued a royal edict, but right now I’ve had about as much of you as I can stand.’ She extracted her keys and unlocked the door. ‘Believe that if I could opt out of dinner tonight with Jonathan, I would!’ In one graceful movement she slid in behind the wheel and fired the engine.
Easing the vehicle forward, she sent it moving swiftly towards the exit without sparing so much as a glance in her rear-view mirror, and she headed towards Darling Point, uncaring as to whether he followed or not.
He really was the most insufferable, antagonistic, frightening man she’d ever met, Lexi fumed as she reached her apartment block and swept below street level to her allotted parking space.
Within minutes of her entering her apartment the doorbell pealed, and she flung the door open to see Georg’s tall frame filling the aperture.
‘How did you get past security?’ she demanded instantly.
‘I produced credentials, and exerted sufficient influence.’ He extended two carrier-bags. ‘Yours,’ he declared with dangerous softness, and her eyes flared brilliantly alive with frustrated rage.
‘I can’t possibly accept them.’
There was a leashed quality about his stance as he entered the lounge, a silent warning evident that only a fool would choose to disregard. ‘Consider them a gift.’
‘For which you paid an exorbitant amount,’ Lexi vented furiously, ‘under the guise of a charitable donation.’
‘The purchases were immaterial.’
‘The main reason for your
appearance at the boutique was abundantly clear,’ she accorded bitterly. ‘By tomorrow the society grapevine will have relayed every little detail plus embellishment and supposition.’
‘Without doubt.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘You don’t give a damn, do you?’
He looked at her in silence, his gaze unwaveringly direct, and there was an element of ruthlessness apparent when he spoke. ‘Go and get changed.’
She drew a deep, angry breath. ‘I am not visiting your mother. At least, not today.’
‘She’s expecting us.’
He made her feel like a recalcitrant child, and she was neither. ‘I don’t like domineering, autocratic men who relegate women to second-class citizenship merely because of their sex.’ She glimpsed a tiny flare of anger in the depths of his eyes, and chose to ignore it. ‘Will you please leave? I’d like to shower and change.’
‘What do you imagine I’ll do if I stay?’ Georg mocked cynically. ‘Invade your bedroom and subject you to a display of unbridled passion?’
She managed to hold his gaze, although there was nothing she could do to prevent the soft tinge of pink that coloured her cheeks. Remembering the force of his kiss was sufficient to enable her to imagine precisely how uninhibited his lovemaking would be.
Effecting a careless shrug, she turned and walked towards the hallway, reaching her bedroom with seemingly unhurried steps where she carefully closed the door.
Damn him! Why did he ruffle her composure? Worse, why did she allow him to succeed?
Twenty minutes later she added the last touch to her make-up, then stood back from the mirror to view her image with critical assessment.
The slim-fitting dress of peacock-blue silk accentuated her slight curves, and provided a perfect foil for her dark auburn hair worn in a smooth knot at her nape with a small bow in matching blue.
Perfume, her favourite Givenchy, was sprayed to several pulse-points, then she gathered up her evening-bag and made her way to the lounge.
Georg was standing by the window, and he turned as she entered the room, his eyes conducting a sweeping appraisal that brought forth an unconscious lift of her chin as she issued coolly, ‘Shall we go?’
Lexi didn’t offer so much as a word as they took the lift down to street level, and she maintained an icy silence as Georg sent the Ferrari east towards Vaucluse.
As much as she wanted to rail against him, there seemed little point in continuing an argument she couldn’t win.
Several butterflies inside her stomach began a series of somersaults as Georg eased the Ferrari into a wide circular driveway and brought it to a halt behind a large Mercedes.
‘Relax,’ he advised quietly as he slipped out from behind the wheel and moved round to open her door, and Lexi directed a brilliant smile at him as she stepped out, and walked at his side towards the imposing entrance.
‘I’m perfectly relaxed,’ she assured. Her eyes challenged his—wide, gold and apparently guileless.
The front door opened and they were welcomed inside by a formally suited man whose demeanour was politely deferential. ‘The family are assembled in the lounge, if you would care to go through.’
Georg smiled at the butler. ‘Thanks, Nathaniel.’
Lexi drew a calming breath, and drew courage from the strength of her convictions.
‘Georgiou! You are late! Everyone else is here!’
A tiny figure attired entirely in black was the visual attestation of an elderly matriarch, and despite her advanced years her eyes were surprisingly alert behind gold-rimmed glasses as she sat rigidly upright in a straight-backed chair.
Lexi proffered a conciliatory smile. ‘The fault is mine.’
The dark brown eyes sharpened and conducted a swift analytical assessment. ‘Indeed?’
‘Georg informed me less than an hour ago that you were expecting us.’ Her eyebrows rose fractionally and she effected a deprecatory gesture with her hands. ‘I had just finished a modelling assignment and I needed to go home and change.’
‘Georgiou, are you not going to introduce this young woman to us all?’
‘Of course, Mama,’ Georg conceded with lazy humour. ‘Lexi Harrison.’
‘Lexi? What name is that?’
‘My mother’s favoured derivation of Alexis,’ she informed her calmly, refusing to be fazed in the slightest.
‘You are divorced.’
‘Yes, I am.’ What was this—an inquisition, for heaven’s sake?
‘Mama,’ Georg admonished with musing indolence. ‘You presume too much.’
‘I agree,’ a deep voice drawled, and an older version of Georg moved forward, his smile warm and welcoming. ‘Lexi, how are you?’
‘Alex,’ Lexi acknowledged, allowing her answering smile to encompass the slim attractive-looking woman at his side.
‘My wife Samantha,’ he introduced. ‘And this,’ he paused to indicate the little girl cradled in the curve of his arm, ‘is our daughter Leanne.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ Lexi complimented, for it was true. The wide-eyed sable-haired imp was utterly adorable.
‘Yes,’ Alex agreed, and his eyes settled on his wife with such infinite warmth that Lexi almost caught her breath. ‘I am a very fortunate man.’
‘Anna and Nick are not able to be here,’ Mrs Nicolaos informed them. ‘Tomorrow night we will have a celebratory dinner.’ Her eyes did not leave Lexi for a second. ‘Precisely what do you model, young woman, and when and where did you meet Georgiou?’
The elderly woman was persistent, and ‘irascible’ wasn’t the right word! ‘Clothes,’ Lexi answered with every semblance of outward calm. ‘The winter, spring, summer and autumn collections of well-known designers; photographic stills for fashion magazines, and the occasional television commercial.’ It wasn’t in her nature to be outrageous, but the temptation to shock was irresistible. ‘I don’t pose in the nude, nor do I resort to the type of photography that portrays women in a state of provocative dishabille.’
Mrs Nicolaos didn’t bat so much as an eyelid. ‘Of course not. Your father would have disowned you.’
Lexi effected a slight moue in silent agreement. ‘I met your son—’
‘At a party,’ Georg intervened smoothly. ‘Lexi was accompanied by her brother.’
‘Hmm. I do not approve of divorce.’
‘Neither do I,’ Lexi responded evenly. ‘If I’d had any sense I would have lived in sin instead of opting for marriage. Then I could have walked away relatively unscathed.’
‘And Georgiou? Do you intend walking away from him?’
This was getting worse by the minute! ‘I would walk away from any man who mistreated me,’ she said quietly. ‘Whether he was your son or not.’
There was a palpable silence during which Lexi held the older woman’s direct gaze, and for a brief moment she glimpsed a softening in those dark eyes before they moved to settle on her youngest son.
‘Georgiou, open the champagne. Alexandros, relinquish my granddaughter so that she may sit with me a while.’
Leanne, who surely should have been terrified of her grandmother, ran to her side the instant Alex set her down on her feet, and the transformation on Mrs Nicolaos’s face was unbelievable as Leanne caught hold of her hand. The elderly woman spoke softly in Greek, and the child gazed at her in open adoration.
‘She’s a darling,’ Samantha said gently, interpreting Lexi’s glance. ‘She also guards her family like a lioness. If it’s any consolation, she attempted to tear me apart the first time Alex brought me here.’
‘Champagne,’ Georg announced, handing Samantha and Lexi each a slim crystal flute, while Alex crossed to his mother’s side.
‘Sit down. Why is everyone standing?’ Mrs Nicolaos demanded, directing both Alex and Georg a fierce look.
‘Out of deference to you, Mama,’ Alex declared gently. ‘If it pleases you for us to be seated, then we shall do so for a short while. Then we will leave, and you must rest.’
‘Bah! I am not
an invalid!’
‘You are infinitely precious to us all. That is why our visits are designed not to overtax your strength.’ Alex leaned forward and brushed his lips against the lined cheek. ‘Now, shall we have our champagne?’
It was almost six when they made their farewells, and, seated in the Ferrari, Lexi leaned back against the head-rest as Georg fired the engine and eased the car down the driveway behind Alex’s Mercedes.
‘You didn’t tell me it was going to be the Nicolaos family en masse,’ she berated him the instant the car entered the street.
He gave her a dark, penetrating glance before returning his attention to the road. ‘Does it matter that Alex and Samantha were there?’
‘This whole thing is beginning to getting out of hand,’ she retaliated, hating the degree of deception involved. In the beginning it had seemed relatively uncomplicated, and now she wasn’t so sure.
‘Yet you were aware when you agreed that it was all or nothing,’ Georg reminded her silkily.
‘At the time I had little conception of what “all” would involve,’ Lexi opined drily.
Only a few blocks separated his mother’s home from Jonathan’s exclusive residence, and they reached the elegant tudor-styled mansion in less than five minutes.
David’s Ferrari was nowhere in sight, and Lexi wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed at being the first to arrive.
‘Before we go inside I suggest you slip this on.’
‘This’ was a brilliant square diamond set on a slender gold band, and she looked at him in consternation. ‘You can’t be serious?’
‘Very.’
‘Don’t you think it’s taking things a bit too far?’
‘If we’ve been keeping our affair under wraps until your divorce was finalised, now that we’ve gone public surely the next logical step is a formal announcement of our forthcoming marriage?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t think Jonathan will rest easy until he has proof that my intentions are honourable?’
The Greek's Bride 0f Convenience (HQR Presents) Page 5