The Greek's Acquisition

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘Not many, no.’ Once again Louise’s pride asserted itself and prevented her from admitting that he was her only lover.

  ‘Why not? You’re a very attractive woman, and I can’t believe you haven’t had offers of relationships.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m not interested in having a relationship.’ She sensed he was waiting for her to explain her comment, and after a moment she continued quietly, ‘Throughout my childhood I watched my mother lurch from one affair to another. I was sent to boarding school at the age of eight, and I never knew at the end of term where I would be spending the holidays. Often I visited my grandmother, but after she died there was no alternative but for me to stay with Tina and her current lover. My mother usually lived in a luxurious apartment when she was some rich guy’s mistress, but inevitably after a few weeks or months he would tire of her and end the affair. Then she would have nowhere to live, and we would have to stay in hotels or she would rent a cheap place—until she found another man to keep her.’

  She gave Dimitri a fierce look. ‘I vowed when I saw how my mother was treated by her lovers—like she was an object rather than a person—that I would never have casual affairs or be reliant on anyone.’

  Tina Hobbs had no one to blame but herself, Dimitri thought grimly. He felt no sympathy for his father’s mistress who, in his opinion, had been no better than a prostitute. But for the first time he appreciated how Louise’s upbringing must have affected her.

  Children were far more perceptive than most adults gave them credit for, he mused. From an early age Louise’s views about men had been formed from witnessing Tina’s experiences, and he could not blame her for being wary and mistrusting of all men—including him.

  His anger lessened and he walked back across the room to her. ‘And yet you were happy to have a relationship with me seven years ago,’ he said softly.

  Louise stiffened, not wanting to be reminded of how stupid she had been. ‘I was young and gullible back then.’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean by gullible? I have good memories of the time we spent together on the island.’

  Presumably he meant that he had enjoyed making a fool of her and breaking her heart. Memories of how he had hurt her, and the river of tears she had shed over him, evoked a dull pain in Louise’s heart. She wished she could leave and never set eyes on him again, but for her mother’s sake she had to stay and somehow survive the next two weeks with her emotions intact.

  ‘What happened between us was over long ago,’ she said tersely. ‘I’m not the naïve girl I was then. I agreed to be your mistress in return for you buying Eirenne, and I am prepared to do whatever you ask of me.’

  Something about their past brief relationship clearly troubled her, Dimitri mused. It was true they had parted abruptly, and events immediately after Louise had left Eirenne had meant he’d been unable to contact her for months. When he had eventually tried she had not answered his calls and at last he had given up.

  He wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, but a glance at his watch told him he did not have time before his meeting with the CEO of a Russian export company, with whom he hoped to finalise a deal. Further discussion with Louise would have to wait until tonight. It seemed that she was still desperate for him to buy the island and had decided to stay and stick to the terms of their agreement.

  ‘In that case, my first request is that you bin the granny gown,’ he murmured.

  Her nightshirt had a row of tiny, fiddly buttons down the front that would take far too long to undo. Instead he gripped the two edges of the shirt and yanked them apart, sending buttons pinging in all directions and evoking a startled cry from Louise.

  ‘You … Neanderthal!’ Her voice shook with fury. ‘Now I have nothing to sleep in.’

  He looked unconcerned. ‘Request number two—no, let’s make that a demand: you sleep naked. Your body is far too beautiful to keep covered up.’

  Dimitri trailed his eyes slowly over her and lingered on her breasts. The heat in his gaze made Louise’s skin prickle and to her shame her nipples jerked to attention and stood proudly taut, demanding his attention.

  ‘I see that the air-conditioning is set a little too cool,’ he drawled.

  She flushed. ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Really?’ He gave her a sardonic look. ‘I don’t think it’s me you hate, glikia, but you resent the way I make you feel.’ He cupped her breasts in his palms and smiled when he felt the tremor that ran through her. ‘Sexual desire between two consenting adults is nothing to feel ashamed of.’ He lowered his head until his breath whispered across her lips. ‘You want me. And I sure as hell want you.’

  She wanted to deny it, and hated herself for the heated desire that licked through her veins. Her heart thudded as she waited for him to close the tiny gap that separated his mouth from hers. She longed for him to kiss her, and he must have sensed her impatience because he gave a low, triumphant laugh before he claimed her lips with fierce possession.

  The effect was electric. Passion instantly flared between them, white-hot and simmering with potent urgency. She might resent him, but Louise could not resist him, and she gave up the fight that she had never stood a chance of winning and sank against him as he deepened the kiss and it became intensely erotic.

  He skimmed his hands over her body and caressed her breasts, then moved down to probe his fingers between her thighs and discover her slick wetness.

  Everything faded from Louise’s consciousness but her need for Dimitri to make love to her. She slid his jacket over his shoulders and ran her hands over his torso, tugged at his shirt buttons and pushed the material aside so that she could feel his satiny skin and wiry chest hairs beneath her fingertips. Her body trembled with a primitive need to take him inside her and she boldly traced the hard ridge of his erection straining beneath his trousers.

  Dimitri muttered a harsh imprecation as he swept her into his arms and strode into the bedroom. He dropped her onto the bed and knelt over her, caught her wrists and held them above her head while he captured one dusky pink nipple in his mouth. He lashed the taut peak with his tongue and then transferred his lips to her other breast and sucked hard, until she gasped and arched her hips in mute invitation.

  Louise was all he could think of—his hunger for her. She aroused a level of desire in him that he had never felt with any other woman and his body shook with the intensity of his need.

  Yet something hovered on the periphery of Dimitri’s mind. The Russian deal. The ten o’clock meeting that, if it went well, would mean job security for hundreds of his employees at Kalakos Shipping—that would enable him to offer employment to hundreds more people who were without work at this time of economic hardship that Greece was currently experiencing.

  Duty. He could not ignore its demands, even though his body was craving sexual release.

  Louise must have sensed his hesitation. She stared at him, her expression unguarded and increasingly wary, as if she thought he was rejecting her. The shimmer of tears in her eyes made Dimitri’s gut clench.

  ‘Dimitri, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, pedhaki.’ He quickly sought to reassure her. He groaned. ‘But my timing is atrocious. I’m due at a meeting this morning to finalise a deal which is worth millions of pounds to the company and, more importantly, which will secure jobs for thousands of my employees.’

  Louise released a shaky breath. For a moment she’d been afraid that he was playing a cruel game intended to prove his dominance over her. She traced the deep groove of his frown with her fingertips. She had read the news reports about Greece’s financial problems, and how successful companies like Kalakos Shipping were vital to the country’s economic recovery. Dimitri carried a huge weight of responsibility on his shoulders. He had been groomed from a young age to take over Kalakos Shipping from his father. After they had rowed Kostas had threatened to disinherit his only son, but presumably he had later realised that Dimitri was the best person to head the company.

 
She gave him a rueful smile and tried to ignore the restless ache of unfulfilled desire that throbbed deep inside her. ‘Then you should go,’ she said softly. ‘People are relying on you and you can’t let them down.’

  Dimitri drew a ragged breath and rested his brow on hers while his body reluctantly accepted that it was not going to be granted the release it craved. Another woman might have sulked and accused him of putting business before her. He’d had mistresses who had not understood that running the company his grandfather had begun sixty years ago was more than just a job.

  But never before had he resented the commitment Kalakos Shipping demanded of him, and never before had he been tempted to ignore his duty. It took all his willpower to get up from the bed, and he felt a sharp pang of regret when Louise sat up and tugged the sheet across her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said roughly. ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you tonight.’

  Her eyes met his. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

  She was so lovely. Her shy smile tugged on his heart, and he ignored the fact that he was running late and leaned over her to give her one last, lingering kiss.

  ‘Last night you were crying in your sleep.’

  He ran a finger lightly over the smudges beneath her eyes, remembering how he had been woken by a sound some time around dawn and had gone to investigate why Louise had made that harrowing cry. She had been curled up on the sofa, fast asleep, but tears had slipped from beneath her lashes and he had been sorely tempted to wake her and try to comfort her.

  ‘You seemed to be having a dream that upset you. Do you want to tell me about it?’

  Louise shook her head. She hadn’t been aware that she had been crying, but now she recalled fragments of the dream in which she had been searching for her baby. It must be seeing Dimitri again and being reminded of their past relationship that had brought back memories of the miscarriage, she thought unhappily.

  She looked into Dimitri’s eyes and felt a little pang inside when she glimpsed a gentle expression in his olive-green eyes that she had never seen before. For a moment she debated telling him about the miscarriage. But she had never spoken about it to anyone, and it hurt—even after all this time it still hurt so much to know that she had lost his baby. Her greatest fear was that he would not care, that he would shrug his shoulders and say it had been for the best because he hadn’t wanted a child. She could not bear to hear him say that, when she had wanted their baby so very much.

  ‘I … don’t remember what I dreamed about,’ she told him huskily. ‘It was probably about a film I watched recently. Sad endings tend to make me embarrassingly emotional.’

  Dimitri studied her speculatively, not wholly convinced by her explanation. ‘If you have a problem that’s bothering you I would be happy to try to help.’

  ‘I don’t—but you’ll have a problem if you’re late for your meeting.’

  He still felt reluctant to leave her. As he walked into the sitting room to retrieve his jacket another thought suddenly struck him.

  ‘Theos! It’s the fifteenth today. I’m supposed to be holding a dinner party tonight, and my sister is bringing her new baby,’ he explained to Louise, who had wrapped the bedspread around her and followed him. He raked a hand through his hair. ‘I’ll cancel.’

  ‘No, you can’t do that.’ Louise bit her lip. ‘I didn’t know Ianthe had had a baby.’

  She thought of Dimitri’s younger sister, whom she had met a few times when Ianthe had visited her father on Eirenne. The visits had been awkward occasions, during which her mother had monopolised Kostas’s attention and Ianthe had clearly been upset by the break-up of her parents’ marriage. But despite that a tentative friendship had started between Louise and the Greek girl, who was a similar age to her.

  ‘Her daughter is six weeks old,’ Dimitri told her. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind about dinner? You might like to see the baby—Ana’s a cute little thing.’

  Louise felt a sensation as if a lead weight had dropped in her stomach. The subject of babies was always painful—especially so when her emotions were still raw after the dream. But she could not explain her fear that seeing Dimitri’s sister’s baby would open a deep wound in her heart and intensify her grief for the child she had lost.

  She realised that Dimitri was waiting for her to reply. ‘I’m sure the baby is lovely. And I’d like to meet Ianthe again.’

  ‘Okay, that’s settled.’ He snatched up his briefcase, dropped a disappointingly brief kiss on her lips, and headed for the door.

  ‘Will the dinner party be a formal affair?’ Louise ran a mental check-list of the clothes she had brought with her to Athens and concluded that she had nothing suitable to wear. ‘I didn’t pack anything that could remotely be called evening wear. It’s a pity, because I have several dresses at home that would have been ideal.’

  Dimitri paused on his way out of the door. ‘Like the dress you wore to dinner in Paris?’

  His jaw hardened as he recalled the black Benoit Besson dress, and the elegant suit by the same designer that Louise had worn the previous day. He still hadn’t discovered who had paid for her clothes. He told himself it did not matter. He did not want to believe that she was a gold-digger like her mother. But his curiosity about the mysterious benefactor who bought her haute couture continued to bug him.

  Louise frowned, wondering if she had imagined the sudden curtness in his voice. He was probably thinking about his business meeting and did not want to be delayed by a discussion about clothes, she told herself.

  ‘The suit I wore yesterday will be okay, won’t it?’ She’d suddenly remembered it was hanging in the wardrobe.

  ‘It’ll be fine.’

  Dimitri strode out of the room without glancing at her again, leaving Louise to wonder what on earth she was going to do all day when she did not have her job to occupy her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AFTER breakfast, which Joseph the butler served on the terrace, Louise spent some time exploring Dimitri’s well-stocked library, and was pleased to find the latest thriller from an author she enjoyed. But although the plot was intriguing her day passed slowly. She was not used to having spare time. Her job at the Louvre was absorbing, and for the past few months she had gone straight from work to the hospital, to visit her mother.

  Later that afternoon she phoned the hospital in Massachusetts and was reassured to hear that Tina had arrived and was comfortable. The specialist hoped to start the treatment the following day, and seemed optimistic about her mother’s prognosis. Louise knew that Tina’s chance of making a full recovery was not a certainty, but at least now she had a chance.

  Even though she resented the condition Dimitri had imposed, she was grateful to him for agreeing to buy Eirenne. It was highly unlikely that she would have found another buyer who could have raised one million pounds so quickly. Being his mistress for two weeks was a price she was willing to pay for her mother’s life, and as long as she remembered that he only wanted her body there was no danger that he would be a threat to her heart.

  ‘Kyria Frobisher?’ Joseph walked across the terrace to where Louise was sitting in the shade of a parasol. ‘Kyrie Kalakos has left a message to say that if you wish to swim in the pool there is a selection of swimwear in the summerhouse,’ he said in Greek.

  ‘Efkharistó.’ She smiled at the elderly butler. The late afternoon sun was scorching and the idea of a swim to cool off was tempting.

  Following the path that Joseph showed her, Louise discovered a huge pool surrounded by white marble tiles that gleamed in the bright sunlight. The air temperature felt even hotter here, and the tall pine trees that circled the pool area prevented the breeze from rippling the surface of the turquoise water.

  The summerhouse was unlocked, and after a few minutes of searching she found a storage box containing several bikinis. Who had they belonged to? she wondered. She hated the idea that Dimitri had invited other women to his house. From the skimpy cut of some of the swimwear she guessed that his girlfri
ends were happy to show off much more of their bodies than she was.

  She chose a plain black bikini which was more substantial than a couple of triangles held together with string, and once she had changed went back outside to dive into the pool. The feel of the cool water on her heated skin was bliss, and she swam for a while and then climbed out and lay on a sunbed, telling herself that she would only close her eyes for a minute …

  ‘I hope you used sunscreen.’

  Dimitri’s voice dragged her from sleep and she lifted her eyelids to see him striding towards her. Her heart gave a familiar lurch when he sat down on the edge of the sunbed. He had changed out of his business suit into black shorts and a sleeveless tee shirt and looked unbelievably gorgeous. Louise knew there was a gym and squash court in the basement of the house, and guessed from his toned physique that he worked out regularly.

  ‘You didn’t, did you? You idiot—don’t you realise how quickly your fair skin will burn in this heat?’

  Gorgeous, but as bossy as hell, she thought ruefully.

  ‘I’m not a child,’ she reminded him. ‘I’ve only been lying here for a minute.’

  ‘Sometimes you act like one.’ Dimitri skimmed his eyes over her slim body and thought how unbelievably sexy she looked in the halterneck bikini.

  His frown faded and was replaced by a wicked glint that set Louise’s pulse racing.

  ‘But you certainly don’t look like a child, glikia. You are a beautiful, sensual woman,’ he murmured against her lips, before he slid his tongue between them and explored the moist interior of her mouth.

  She responded to him with an eagerness that made him instantly harden. His woman—Dimitri frowned again as he felt a surge of possessiveness that was unexpected and unwanted. She had been on his mind all day, he admitted. Even during the meeting with the Russians he’d had to force himself to concentrate, and when he had taken his team of executives for a celebratory lunch he’d been impatient to race home and take Louise to bed.