‘Miss Sheridan,’ Ava said quickly, holding out her hand to Nigel Engerfield. She was scared he might remember that Terry McKay had a daughter called Ava.
‘Please accept my congratulations, Mr Gekas and... Miss Sheridan.’ The manager’s gaze lingered on Ava. ‘If you would like to follow me, I will take you to one of our private sitting rooms so that you can be comfortable while you take your time to peruse our collection of engagement rings. Is there a particular style or gemstone that you are interested in?’
‘What woman doesn’t love diamonds?’ Giannis drawled.
Nigel Engerfield nodded and left the room, returning a few minutes later carrying several trays of rings, and accompanied by an assistant bearing a bottle of champagne and two glasses. The champagne cork popped and the assistant handed Ava a flute of the sparkling drink. She took a cautious sip, aware that she had not eaten breakfast. Maybe Giannis had the same thought because he set his glass down on the table without drinking from it.
‘Please sit down and take as much time as you like choosing your perfect ring,’ the manager invited Ava, placing the trays of rings on the table in front of her.
She looked down at the glittering, sparkling rings and felt sick as she remembered how, when she was a little girl, she had loved trying on her mother’s jewellery. After her father had been arrested, the police had confiscated all the jewels that Terry had stolen—including her mother’s wedding ring. Everything from Ava’s privileged childhood—the luxury villa in Cyprus, the exotic holidays and expensive private education—had been paid for with the proceeds of her father’s criminal activities. There was nothing she could do to erase her sense of guilt, but working as a VCO was at least some sort of reparation for what her father had done.
‘Do you see anything you like, darling?’ Giannis’s voice jolted her from the past. She looked over to where he was standing by the window. Sunlight streamed through the glass, and his dark hair gleamed like raw silk when he ran a careless hand through it. His face was all angles and planes, as beautiful as a sculpted work of art. But he was not made from cold marble. Last night his skin had felt warm beneath her fingertips when she had explored his magnificent body.
Ava could recall every detail of his honed musculature that was now hidden beneath his superbly tailored suit. Oh, yes, she saw something she liked, she silently answered his question. His eyes captured hers, and her heart missed a beat when she glimpsed a predatory gleam in his gaze.
Hastily she looked down at the glittering rings displayed against black velvet cushions. Even though the shop manager had suggested she should take her time to choose a ring, she knew that Giannis wanted her to hurry up.
Inexplicably a wave of sadness swept over her. Choosing an engagement ring was supposed to be a special occasion for couples who were in love. The young assistant who had poured the champagne had looked enviously at Giannis and clearly believed that their romance was genuine. But Ava knew she was an imposter. The web of deceit they were spinning would grow and spread as they sought to convince Stefanos Markou that Giannis had given up his womanising ways because he had fallen in love with her. But of course he never would love her. He needed her so that he could win a business deal and she needed him to save her brother from prison.
What they were doing was wrong, Ava thought miserably. How could she even trust that Giannis would keep his side of their arrangement? He was playing the role of attentive lover faultlessly, but it was just an act—although that did not stop a stupid, idiotic part of her from wishing that his tender smile was real.
‘Sweetheart?’ Giannis walked over to the sofa and sat down beside her. ‘If you don’t like any of the rings, I am sure Mr Engerfield has others that you can look at.’
She swallowed. ‘I can’t do this...’
The rest of her words were smothered by Giannis’s mouth as he swiftly lowered his head and kissed her. ‘I think you are a little overwhelmed by the occasion,’ he murmured, smiling softly at her stunned expression. He looked over at the shop manager. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone?’
As soon as Nigel Engerfield and his assistant had stepped out of the room, Giannis did not try to hide his impatience. ‘What is the matter?’ he growled to Ava. ‘All you have to do is choose a diamond ring, but anyone would think you are about to undergo root canal treatment.’
‘I never wear jewellery and I hate diamonds,’ she muttered.
He swore. ‘I thought we had an agreement, but if you’ve changed your mind I will find another way to persuade Stefanos Markou to sell his ships to me—and your brother will go to prison.’
Ava bit her lip. ‘How do I know that you will drop the charges against my brother?’
‘You have my word.’
‘Your word means nothing.’ She ignored the flash of anger in his eyes. ‘Phone your lawyer now and instruct that you no longer want to press charges against Sam.’
Giannis glared at her. ‘How do I know you won’t immediately go to the press and deny that you are my fiancée?’
‘You’ll have to trust me.’ Ava glared back at him and refused to be cowed by his black stare. In the tense silence that stretched between them she could hear the loud thud of her heart in her ears. Giannis was a man used to being in control, but if he thought she was a pushover he had a nasty surprise coming to him.
Finally he took out his phone and made a call. ‘It’s done,’ he told her moments later. ‘You heard me inform my lawyer that I have decided not to press a charge of criminal damage against Sam McKay. Now it is your turn to keep to your side of the bargain.’
Ava felt light-headed with relief that Sam would not face prosecution and prison. ‘I won’t let you down,’ she assured Giannis huskily. She glanced at the trays and selected an ostentatious diamond solitaire ring. ‘Does this have enough bling to impress the paparazzi?’
He frowned at her choice and studied the other rings. ‘This one is better,’ he said as he picked out a ring and slid it onto her finger.
She stared down at her hand, and her throat felt oddly constricted. ‘Really?’ she tried to ignore the emotions swirling inside her as she said sarcastically, ‘Don’t you think a pink heart is romantic overload?’
‘It’s a pink sapphire. You said you dislike diamonds, although there are a few small diamonds surrounding the heart. But the ring is pretty and elegant and it suits your small hand.’
The ring was a perfect fit on her finger and, despite Ava’s insistence that she did not like jewellery, she instantly fell in love with the pink sapphire’s simplicity and delicate beauty. Once again she felt a tug on her heart. Didn’t every woman secretly yearn for love and marriage, for the man of her dreams to place a beautiful ring on her finger and tell her that he loved her?
Giannis was hardly her fairy tale prince, she reminded herself. If they had not been spotted by the paparazzi leaving the hotel together, she would have been just another of his one-night stands. She stood up abruptly and moved away from him. ‘I don’t care which ring I have. It’s simply to fool people into thinking that we are engaged and I’ll only have to wear it for a month.’
He followed her over to the door but, before she could open it, he caught hold of her shoulder and spun her round to face him. His brows lowered when he saw her mutinous expression. ‘For the next month I will expect you to behave like you are my adoring fiancée, not a stroppy adolescent, which is your current attitude,’ he said tersely.
‘Let go of me.’ Her eyes darkened with temper when he backed her up against the door. He was too close, and her senses leapt as she breathed in his exotic aftershave. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Giving you some acting lessons,’ he growled and, before she had time to react, he covered her mouth with his and kissed the fight out of her.
He kissed her until she was breathless, until she melted against him and slid her arms up the front of his shirt. The scrape of his r
ough jaw against her skin sent a shudder of longing through Ava. It shamed her to admit it, but Giannis only had to touch her and he decimated her power of logical thought. She pressed herself closer to his big, hard body, a low moan rising in her throat when he flicked his tongue inside her mouth.
And then it was over as, with humiliating ease, he broke the kiss and lifted his hands to unwind her arms from around his neck. Only the slight unsteadiness of his breath indicated that he was not as unaffected by the kiss as he wanted her to think.
His voice was coolly amused as he drawled, ‘You are an A-star student, glykiá mou. You almost had me convinced that you are in love with me.’
‘Hell,’ Ava told him succinctly, ‘will freeze over first.’
CHAPTER FIVE
PARIS IN EARLY autumn was made for lovers. The September sky was a crisp, bright blue and the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colour and drifted to the ground like red and gold confetti.
Staring out of the window of a chauffeur-driven limousine on his way back to his hotel from a business meeting, Giannis watched couples holding hands or strolling arm in arm next to the Seine. What it was to be in love, he thought cynically. Five years ago he had fallen hard for Caroline when he’d met her during a business trip to her home state of California. Theos, he had believed that she loved him. But the truth was she had loved his money and had hoped he would pay for her father’s political campaign to become the next US President.
Caroline’s pregnancy had been a mistake but, as long as they were married, a baby, especially if it was a boy, might help her father’s campaign, she’d told Giannis. Images of widower Brice Herbert cuddling his grandchild would appeal to the electorate.
However, having a son-in-law who had served a prison sentence would have been a disaster for Brice Herbert’s political ambition. Caroline had reacted with horror when Giannis had revealed the dark secret of his past. He’d sensed that she had been relieved when she’d lost the baby. Motherhood had not been on her agenda when there was a chance she could be America’s First Lady. It was probably a blessing in disguise, she’d said, and it meant that there was no reason for them to marry. But he could never believe that the loss of his child was a blessing. It had felt as if his heart had been ripped out, and confirmed his belief that he did not deserve to be happy.
The limousine swept past the Arc de Triomphe while Giannis adeptly blocked out thoughts of his past and focused on the present. Specifically on the woman who was going to help him prove to Stefanos Markou that he had given up his playboy lifestyle. He should have predicted that Ava would argue when he had given her his credit card and sent her shopping, he brooded.
‘I packed some things when you drove me home to collect my passport. There is nothing wrong with my clothes,’ she’d told him in a stiff voice that made him want to shake her.
‘I am a wealthy man and when we are out together in public, people will expect my fiancée to be dressed in haute couture,’ he had explained patiently. ‘Fleur Laurent is a personal shopper and she will take you to the designer boutiques on the Champs-Élysées.’
Most women in Giannis’s experience would have been delighted at the chance to spend his money, but not Ava. She was irritating, incomprehensible and—he searched for another suitable adjective that best summed up his feelings for her. Ungrateful. She did not seem to appreciate that he was doing her a huge favour by dropping the criminal damage charge against her brother.
Giannis frowned as he remembered meeting Sam McKay briefly when he’d driven Ava home before they had flown to Paris. He had been surprised when she’d directed him to pull up outside a shabby terraced house. It was odd that her family had moved from Cyprus to a run-down area of East London. Perhaps there had been a change in her parents’ financial circumstances, he’d mused.
He had insisted on accompanying Ava into the house to maintain the pretence of their romance. He wasn’t going to risk her brother selling a story to the press that their engagement was fake. But, instead of a swaggering teenager, he’d discovered that Sam was a lanky, nervous-looking youth who had stammered his thanks to Giannis for dropping the criminal charges against him. Sam had admitted that he’d been stupid and regretted the mistakes he had made.
Giannis understood what it was like to regret past actions and, to his surprise, he’d found himself feeling glad that he had given Ava’s brother a chance to turn his life around. While Ava had gone upstairs to look for her passport, Sam had shyly congratulated him on becoming engaged to his sister and had voiced his opinion that Ava deserved to be happy after her previous boyfriend had broken her heart.
The limousine drew up outside the hotel and Giannis glanced at his watch. His meeting had overrun but there was just enough time for him to shower and change before the evening’s function at the Louvre started. He hoped Ava would be ready on time. Theos, he hoped she hadn’t run out on him.
He was aware of a sinking sensation in his stomach as the possibility occurred to him. He acknowledged that he had struggled to concentrate during his business meeting because he had been anticipating spending the evening with Ava. If he hadn’t known himself better he might have been concerned by his fascination with her. But experience had taught him that desire was a transitory emotion.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that you would be interested in a fashion show,’ she had remarked when he’d told her about the evening’s event.
‘The show is for new designers to demonstrate their talent. I sponsor a young Greek designer called Kris Antoniadis. You may not have heard of him, but I predict that in a few years he will be highly regarded in the fashion world. At least I certainly hope so because I am Kris’s main financial sponsor and I have invested a lot of money in him.’
‘Is money the only thing you are interested in?’ she’d asked him in a snippy tone which gave the impression she thought that making money was immoral.
He had looked her up and down and allowed his eyes linger on the firm swell of her breasts beneath her cashmere sweater. ‘It’s not the only thing that interests me,’ he’d murmured, and she’d blushed.
There was no sign of her in their hotel suite, but Giannis heard the sound of a hairdryer from the en suite bathroom. Stripping off his jacket and tie as he went, he strode into the separate shower room and then headed to the dressing room to change into a tuxedo.
He returned to the sitting room just as Ava emerged from the bedroom, and Giannis felt a sudden tightness in his chest. His brain acknowledged that the personal shopper had fulfilled the brief he’d given her to find an evening gown that was both elegant and sexy. But as he stared at Ava he was conscious of the way another area of his anatomy reacted as his blood rushed to his groin.
‘You look stunning,’ he told her, and to his own ears his voice sounded huskier than usual as his customary sangfroid deserted him.
‘Thank you. So do you.’ Soft colour stained her cheeks. Giannis was surprised by how easily she blushed. It gave her an air of vulnerability that he chose to ignore.
‘The personal shopper said I should wear a statement dress tonight—whatever a statement dress is. But I don’t think you will approve when I tell you how many noughts were on the price tag,’ she said ruefully.
‘Whatever it cost it was worth it.’ Giannis could not tear his eyes off her. The dress was made of midnight-blue velvet, strapless and fitting tightly to her hips before the skirt flared out in a mermaid style down to the floor. Around her neck she wore a matching blue velvet choker with a diamanté decoration. Her hair was caught up at the sides with silver clasps and rippled down her back in silky waves.
He had a mental image of her lying on the bed wearing only the velvet choker, her creamy skin and luscious curves displayed for his delectation. Desire ran hot and urgent through his veins and he was tempted to turn his vision into reality.
Perhaps Ava could read his mind. ‘I don’t know why
you booked a hotel suite with only one bedroom. The deal was for me to be your fake fiancée.’ She walked past him and picked up the phone. ‘I’m going to call reception and ask for a room of my own.’
Giannis crossed the room in two strides and snatched the receiver out of her hand. ‘If you do that, how long do you think it will take for a member of the hotel’s staff to reveal on social media that we don’t share a bed? We are supposed to be madly in love,’ he reminded her.
‘Did you assume I would be your convenient mistress for the next month? You’ve got a damned nerve,’ she snapped.
He considered proving to her that it had been a reasonable assumption to make. Sexual chemistry simmered between them and all it would take was one kiss, one touch, to cause a nuclear explosion. He watched her tongue dart out to moisten her lower lip and the beast inside him roared.
Somehow Giannis brought his raging hormones under control. What was important was that their ‘romance’ gained as much public exposure as possible so that Stefanos Markou believed he was a reformed character preparing to devote himself to marriage and family—the ideals that Stefanos believed in.
Throughout the day Giannis had asked himself why he was going to the lengths of pretending to be engaged, simply to tip a business opportunity in his favour. But the truth was that he needed Markou Shipping’s fleet of ships to enable him to expand his cruise line company into the river-cruising market. The ships could be refitted during the winter and be ready to take passengers early next summer, which would put TGE ahead of its main competitors.
‘We can sort out sleeping arrangements later,’ he told Ava. ‘The car is waiting to take us to the Louvre. Are you ready for our first performance, agápi mou?’
‘I am not your love.’
‘You are when we are out in public.’ He took hold of her arm and frowned when she flinched away from him. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if we are going to convince anyone that our relationship is genuine.’ Impatience flared in him at her mutinous expression. ‘We made a deal and I have carried out my side of it,’ he reminded her. ‘You told me that I would have to trust you, and I did. But perhaps I was a fool to believe your word?’
Wed for His Secret Heir Page 7