As a child, Dell had loved her dolls, her kitten, her books and food. Her mother was a haphazard cook and by the time she was twelve Dell had been cooking for the family. It became a passion.
At the insistence of her parents, she had completed a degree in food science. A future in the laboratory of a major grocery manufacturer beckoned. Instead, to the horror of her parents, after graduation she went straight to work as an editorial assistant on a suburban newspaper. She showed a flair for restaurant reviewing and articles about food and lifestyle and her career went on from there.
At twenty-two, she married Neil, her high-school boyfriend. He supported her in her desire to become a mother. That was when her plans derailed. In spite of their most energetic efforts, pregnancy didn’t happen. At age twenty-seven they started IVF. The procedure was painful and disruptive. The hormone treatments sent her emotions soaring and plunging. The joy went out of her love-life. But three expensive IVF procedures didn’t result in pregnancy. Just debt.
Then Neil had walked out on her.
Growing up, Dell had often felt like a fluffy, colourful changeling of a chick popped into the nest of sleek, clever hawks who had never got over their surprise in finding her there. She had become adept at putting on a happy face when she’d felt misunderstood and unhappy.
The end of her marriage had come from left field and she’d been devastated. She’d loved Neil and had thought she’d be married for ever. She shared her tears with a few close friends but presented that smiling, fluffy-chick face to the world.
Being suddenly single came as a shock. She’d been part of a couple for so long she didn’t know how to deal with dating. After a series of disastrous encounters she’d given up on the idea of meeting another man. Work became her solace as she tried to deal with the death of her big dream. Accepted that, if IVF hadn’t worked, she wasn’t likely to ever be a mother.
Then just weeks ago the fertility clinic had called to ask what she wanted them to do with the remaining embryo she had stored with them.
Dell knew she should have told them she was divorced. That her ex-husband was in another relationship. But they didn’t ask and she didn’t tell. She’d undergone the fourth procedure the week before she’d been fired. All her other attempts at IVF had failed. She hadn’t held out any real hope for this time. But she’d felt compelled to grab at that one final chance.
Now, the day after her meeting with Alex Mikhalis, Dell lay back on her cool white bed at Bay Breeze racked by the cramps that had always heralded failure. She took in a great, gasping sob then stayed absolutely still, desperately willing that implant to stay put. Her baby. But a visit to the bathroom confirmed blood. She’d failed again.
She would never be a mother.
Dell stood at the window for a long time staring sightlessly out to the view of the sea. Her hand rested on her flat, flat stomach. There was nothing for her here. No job. No man. No close family. Just parents who, if she left the country, would wave her goodbye without thinking to ask why she was going. Her friends were starting families and moving into a life cycle she couldn’t share. She hadn’t told anyone about this last desperate effort to conceive so there was no one to share her grief. But she did have all her cyber friends on her blog. She had to put on her fluffy-chick face and move on.
Without thinking any further, she picked up the house phone and called through to Alex Mikhalis’s room. She braced herself to leave a message and was shocked when he answered. Somehow she found the words to ask could she have a meeting with him. His tone was abrupt as he told her to be quick—he was packing to head back to Sydney.
Dell had no chance to change. Or apply make-up. Just pushed her hair into place in front of the mirror and slicked on some lip gloss. Yoga pants were de rigueur in a place like this anyway. He wouldn’t expect to see her in a business suit and heels.
He answered the door to his room. ‘Yes?’ he said, his voice deep and gruff and more than a touch forbidding.
For a long moment Dell hesitated on the threshold. He towered over her, in black trousers and a charcoal-grey shirt looking every inch the formidable tycoon. Half of the buttons on his shirt were left open, as if he’d been fastening them when she’d sounded the buzzer on his door. It left bare a triangle of olive skin and a hint of dark chest hair on an impressively muscled chest.
Her heart started to beat double-quick time and she felt so shaky at the knees she had to clutch at the doorframe for support. Not because she was nervous about approaching him. Or feared what kind of a boss he might be. No. It was because her long-dormant libido had flared suddenly back into life at the sight of him—those dark eyes, the proud nose, the strong jaw newly shaven but already shadowing with growth. He was hot.
Dell swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth. This unwelcome surge of sensual awareness could complicate things. She was beginning to rethink his devil incarnate status. But who knew if he was sincere about having changed? After all, she’d seen him at his intimidating worst on those courtroom steps. She had to take him on trust but be cautious. That did not mean fancying the pants off him.
Eyes off the gorgeous man, Dell.
He stepped back and she could see his bag half packed on his bed. Perhaps he was headed to Greece and she would never see him again. This could be her only chance.
She forced her lips into a smile, the wobble at the edge betraying her attempt to be both nonchalant and professional. And not let him guess the turmoil of her senses evoked by his half-dressed state. ‘Your job offer?’ she said.
He nodded.
‘Can...can a person change her mind?’
* * *
Alex stared at Dell. What had happened? Thinly disguised anguish showed in the set of her jaw, the pallor of her face, her red-rimmed eyes. The expression in her eyes was sad rather than sparkling. But as she met his gaze, her cheeks flushed pink high on her cheekbones, her chin rose resolutely and he wondered if he’d imagined it.
‘I’d like to accept the job.’ She hesitated. There was an edge to her voice that made him believe he had not imagined her distress. ‘That is, if the position is still on offer.’
Alex had been gutted when she’d turned him down. Disappointed out of all proportion. And stunned that he’d been so shaken. Because of course she’d been right. Whisper a word in a recruitment agent’s ear and he’d be inundated with qualified people ready to take up the job with him. Why Dell Hudson? Because it was her and only her he’d wanted. He’d had no intention of taking her ‘no’ as final. In fact he’d been planning strategies aimed at getting a ‘yes’ from her.
Once he’d made up his mind about something it was difficult to budge him. It was a trait he had inherited from his stubborn grandfather. No one else would do but her. Was it his tried and tested gut feel telling him that? Or something else? It was nothing to do with the fact he found her attractive. That was totally beside the point. He did not date employees. Never, ever after what had happened with Mia.
‘Why did you change your mind?’ he asked Dell.
She took a deep breath, which emphasised the curve of her breasts outlined by her tight-fitting tank top. How had he never noticed how sexy she was? He forced his eyes upward to catch the nuances of her expression rather than the curves of her shapely body.
‘A...sudden change of circumstances,’ she said. ‘Something...something personal.’
‘Problems with a guy?’ he asked. Over the years he’d learned to deal with the personal dramas of female staff. Not that it ever got easier.
She shook her head and again he caught that glimpse of sadness in her eyes. ‘No. I’m one hundred per cent single. And intending to stay that way. I’m free to devote my time entirely to my work with you.’
‘Good,’ he said. He didn’t want to hear the details of her marriage breakup. Or any bust-ups that came afterwards. That was none of his concern. Th
is was about a job. Nothing more.
Although he found it very difficult to believe she was single by choice.
‘I don’t let my personal life impinge on my work,’ she said. ‘I want your job and I want to go to Greece.’
‘You’re sure about that? You’re not going to change your mind again?’
She took another distracting deep breath. ‘I’m very sure.’
He allowed himself a smile, knowing that it was tinged with triumph. Reached out to shake her hand. ‘When can you be ready to fly to Athens?’
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE WAS IN GREECE, working for Alex Mikhalis!
It had all happened so fast Dell still felt a little dizzy that, just two weeks after her wobbly encounter with him in the yoga room, the man who had been her adversary—the man she had loathed—was her boss.
So far so good. It had been a long, tedious trip to get here even in the comfort of the business-class seats he had booked for her—twenty-three hours to Athens alone. Then another short flight to the small airport at Preveza in north-western Greece.
Too excited to be jet-lagged, she staggered out into the sunshine expecting to find a sign with her name on it held up by a taxi driver. But her new boss was there to meet her. Tall and imposing, he stood out among the people waiting for passengers. He waved to get her attention.
Dell’s breath caught and her heart started hammering. It was the first time she’d seen Alex since that meeting in his room at Bay Breeze. For a moment she was too stunned to say anything. Not just because her reawakened senses jumped to alert at how Greek-god-handsome he looked in stone linen trousers and a collarless white linen shirt. But because she wasn’t sure what rules applied to their changed status. It was quite a leap for her to take from enemy to employee.
‘Good flight?’ he asked.
‘Very good, thank you,’ she said, uncertain of what to call him. He was her employer now but they had history of a kind. ‘Er...thank you, Mr Mikhalis.’
His dark eyes widened as if she’d said something ridiculous, then he laughed. ‘That’s my father’s name,’ he said. ‘Alex will do. You’re not working for a corporation here. Just me.’
He held out his hand to take hers in a firm, warm grip. ‘Welcome on board.’ His handshake was professional, his tone friendly but impersonal. She would take her cue from that. And totally repress that little shiver of awareness that rippled through her at his touch.
‘Thank you,’ she said. That was her third ‘thank you’. Their status might have changed but she wondered if she would ever be able to relax around him.
He went to take her luggage and made a mock groan. ‘What on earth have you got in here?’
Her suitcase was stuffed to the limit—she’d had no real idea of what she’d be facing and had packed for any occasion. ‘Just clothes and...er...shoes.’
‘Enough to shoe a centipede by the weight of it,’ he said. But he smiled and she felt some of the tension leave her shoulders.
‘There’s snorkelling equipment there too,’ she said a tad defensively. She knew this wouldn’t be a regular nine-to-five job but she hoped there’d be leisure time too.
‘The waters around the island are perfect for snorkelling,’ he said. ‘But the water temperature is still too cold to swim without a wetsuit. It warms up towards the end of May. I’ll swim every day then.’
A vision came from nowhere of him spearing through aqua waters, his hair slicked dark to his head, his body lean and strong and muscular, his skin gilded by shafts of sunlight falling through the water. This was all kinds of crazy. She forced the too personal thoughts away and thought sensible work-type thoughts. The only kind of thoughts she could allow herself to have about him.
What kind of boss would he be?
He’d had a reputation for being somewhat of a tyrant in Sydney. There were rumours of banks of CCTVs in his most popular venues to ensure he could monitor the staff at all times. Spying on them, according to disgruntled employees. Alex’s explanation had been the surveillance was there to ensure drinks weren’t being spiked with date rape drugs. She hadn’t known who to believe at the time.
She followed him to his car. In Sydney at the time of the trial, he had driven the latest model Italian sports car, as befitted his wealthy, playboy image. Now she was surprised to see a somewhat battered four-by-four. Effortlessly he swung her heavy luggage in the back.
‘Next stop is Lefkada,’ he said. ‘You’ll be staying at a villa in the port of Nidri and coming over daily by boat to Kosmima.’
Dell already knew that Kosmima was the small private island he owned and the site of his new resort. ‘I can’t wait to see it,’ she said, avid for more information.
As soon as she was settled in the front seat, she launched into a string of questions. She listened as he explained the size of the island—about one thousand metres by one and a half thousand metres. That it was largely untamed vegetation of cypress and oak and a cultivated olive grove. Past owners had turned old donkey trails into accessible roads. The most recent had put in a helipad.
But his deep sonorous voce had a hypnotic effect. Dell was interested—intensely interested—but she had been awake for more than thirty hours. She only kept her eyes open long enough to leave the airport behind and to cross the causeway that connected Lefkada to the mainland.
She woke up, drowsy, to find the car stationary. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. An unfamiliar car. An unfamiliar view through the window. An unfamiliar man.
Dell froze, suddenly wide awake. In her sleep she had leaned across from her seat and was snuggled up to Alex Mikhalis’s shoulder. Mortified, she snapped her eyes shut again before he realised she was awake. What to do? She was aware of a strong, warm body, a spicy masculine scent, his breath stirring her hair—and that she liked it very much. She liked it too much. He was her boss.
She pretended to wake with a gasp and scooted across the seat away from him as fast as her bottom would take her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, aware of the sudden flush staining her cheeks. That short, nervous laugh she was forever trying to control forced its way out. ‘How unprofessional of me.’
His eyes met hers, dark, inscrutable, as he searched her face. She swore her heart stopped with the impact of his nearness. He was gorgeous. But she could not let herself acknowledge that. This inconvenient attraction had to be stomped on from the start. She needed this job and could not let anything jeopardise it.
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Jet lag. It happens to the best of us.’ But not everyone used their boss’s shoulder as a pillow. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said as if he’d scarcely noticed her presence. As if it happened all the time.
No doubt he’d been used to women flinging themselves at him. That was, of course, before he’d lost his fiancée, the lovely chef who had worked for him. The story of their tragic romance had been repeated by the press over and over after she’d died. Everywhere he’d looked he must have seen her face. Such an intensity of loss. No wonder he’d escaped the country.
She realised she was doing the same thing. Running from loss of a different kind but painful just the same. Every month she’d been just a day late she’d hoped she was pregnant. Before each IVF procedure she had allowed herself to dream about the baby she would hold in her arms, imagined how he or she would look, thought about names. Then grieved those lost babies who had seemed so real to her. Two pairs of tiny knitted booties, one pink and one blue, had been hidden in a drawer to be taken out and held against her cheek while she dreamed. But not this last failed attempt at IVF. Packing up her possessions to move out of her small rented apartment, she had found the booties and packed them with the clothes she gave away to charity.
‘Thank you,’ she said. Again. Were thank you and sorry going to be the key words of this working relationship? Toughen up, Dell.
/> They were parked near a busy harbour. The marina was packed with a flotilla of tall-masted yachts, motor cruisers and smaller craft of all kinds. The waterfront was lined with colourful cafés and restaurants, each fronted by signs proclaiming their specialities. ‘This is the port of Nidri,’ Alex said.
Dell noticed charter boats and ferries and signs in English and Greek—of which she couldn’t understand a word—to the islands of Corfu and Ithaca and Cephalonia. Excitement started to bubble. She really was in Greece. That dream, at least, had come true.
‘This is the town where I’m staying?’ she said.
‘In a villa complex owned by my aunt and uncle. You’ll be comfortable there. There are shops, restaurants, lots of night life. My cousin will take you to and from Kosmima by boat.’
‘Do you live there too?’ she asked. He didn’t wear any rings. She hadn’t given thought to whether or not he was still single. He could be married for all she knew, he’d done so well to keep out of the gossip columns where he used to be a regular item. A man like him wouldn’t be alone—unless by choice.
‘I live on Kosmima, by myself,’ he said. His tone told her not to ask any more questions.
She might not be an investigative journalist—she came under the category of lifestyle writer—but Dell was consumed with curiosity about how the nightclub prince of Sydney came to be living in this place. How he had kept his whereabouts so secret when he had disappeared from Sydney.
‘I’ll take you to the villa,’ he said. ‘We’ll have lunch there then you can settle in and get some sleep before you start work tomorrow.’
Dell wanted to protest that she was ready to start work right now but of course that would be ridiculous. Her impromptu nap in his car had proved that. She needed to get out of the jeans she’d worn on the plane, shower and then sleep before she could be of any use to Alex.
Conveniently Wed to the Greek Page 4