by Lynne Graham
Not a bad lesson to learn, Ellie told herself, striving to feel more upbeat. The excitement was over now. She had resisted Dio Alexiakis. She had done the right thing. But why hadn’t she appreciated how dreadful doing the right thing might make her feel?
CHAPTER SIX
MIDWAY through the following week, Ellie told Mr Barry that she had finally made an appointment at the bank.
‘Why?’
Ellie smiled, thinking that her elderly employer was becoming very absent-minded. ‘So that I can apply for a loan to buy this business,’ she reminded him gently.
Horace Barry looked dismayed. ‘Leave that for a while yet, Ellie,’ he urged.
Bewildered by that reaction, Ellie murmured reluctantly, ‘I suppose I could cancel the appointment—’
‘Yes…yes, much the best thing for now,’ he cut in to agree with a pronounced air of relief.
With a muttered reference to some books that required sorting, the older man then took himself off without offering any further explanation. Ellie frowned. Wasn’t he quite as eager to retire as he had always said he was? What else could it be? Keen to save on estate agency fees, Horace Barry had given her to understand that if she was able to offer a fair price by the end of the year, the shop was hers. Ellie told herself not to make mountains out of molehills. It wouldn’t hurt her to wait, but she was disappointed. Just then, the challenge of taking on her own business would have been very welcome.
Another two weeks passed by on leaden feet for Ellie. Mr Barry was a quiet man, but he had become exceptionally quiet. Almost evasive with her. Troubled and distracted by that suspicion, Ellie had to glance at the calendar in her room one evening before she belatedly noticed the absence of a certain telling pen-mark. All of a sudden Ellie saw that she had something far more immediate to worry about.
Stress and sleepless nights had probably disrupted her monthly cycle, she told herself in dismay. She was only about a week late. But the more she worried about the possibility of being pregnant, the more likely a development it seemed. She might well have conceived. She was young and healthy and, according to her calculations, the timing of that contraceptive failure could not have been worse.
As Ellie entered the Alexiakis International building for work that same evening, she saw Dio for the first time in almost three weeks. Tall, blue-black hair gleaming under the lights, his bold, bronzed profile commanding, he was striding towards the executive lift, three other men in his wake. Shock made Ellie’s stomach flip right over. She came to an involuntary halt on legs that felt distinctly wobbly. Her head swam and she gulped in oxygen, feeling perspiration break out on her skin.
‘How are you, Ellie?’ a deep, dark drawl enquired with leaden casualness.
Blinking furiously, Ellie focused on a pair of polished hand-stitched leather shoes and slowly lifted her head. Her wide, incredulous gaze centred on Dio and stayed there, locked onto him like a guided missile, her heart pounding like crazy. Black fathomless eyes stared down into hers.
‘You look like a ghost facing an exorcist,’ Dio murmured in flat continuation, looking her over with unashamed and even more inappropriate thoroughness.
Noticing his three former companions holding the lift for his benefit while watching the encounter with the equivalent of dropped jaws, Ellie forced her brain to spring back into gear. ‘Go away, for goodness’ sake!’ she urged, her colour high. ‘You’re not supposed to know me!’
‘Damned if I do and damned if I don’t,’ Dio rhymed with sardonic amusement. ‘Why are women so irrational?’
‘Why are men so unbelievably thick?’ Ellie breathed, sidestepping him to hurry on past with a downbent head. Before she had completed that escape, however, she noticed a couple of the other cleaners nearby. Their attention was welded to her with speculative heat. Ellie’s heart sank.
When she went down for her break later, she was intensely uncomfortable. If one of her co-workers had challenged her openly about her encounter with Dio, she would have known that nothing suspicious had been detected. But the sudden silence which greeted her appearance, the covert glances and the buzz that broke out when she left again told her otherwise. And what other reaction could she have expected? she asked herself sickly.
Dio hadn’t just given her a fleeting nod or a passing word. In the act of stepping into the lift, Dio had come all the way back across the foyer to acknowledge her and embark on a conversation. What on earth had possessed him? Didn’t he appreciate how much he had exposed her to adverse comment?
Meg Bucknall followed her into the service lift. ‘I thought I’d better wait and have a word with you in private,’ she admitted frankly.
Ellie tried not to stiffen and nodded.
‘Ellie, the girls were adding two and two and making four before you even started your shift,’ Meg shared ruefully. ‘Everyone knows you switched with me that night and then just vanished for most of that week.’
‘I didn’t think anyone would be that interested.’
‘In the normal way of it, they wouldn’t have been. But a few of them had already joked about how much you looked like that blonde with Mr Alexiakis in Greece. None of them were suspicious…but him going out of his way to speak to you tonight was strange enough to confirm the wildest rumours.’
Ellie had too much respect for the older woman to embark on frantic denials. On her first night back to work she had known that Meg was disconcerted by her failure to offer an explanation of her disappearance. ‘I’ll ride out the gossip,’ she muttered tautly.
The older woman sighed. ‘A couple of weeks ago, Mr Alexiakis walked past me and said, “Goodnight, Mrs Bucknall,” for the first time ever. I couldn’t help but know that something had changed somewhere. I would have sworn he didn’t even know my name, never mind take note of me being around!’
Ellie coloured as she recalled accusing Dio of not even noticing his more humble employees.
‘I’ve no time for gossip.’ Meg’s eyes were troubled. ‘It’s you I’m worrying about—’
‘I’m fine…sadder but wiser,’ Ellie confided tightly as the lift reached her floor.
Meg grimaced. ‘I wish I could give that young man a piece of my mind—’
‘I’m not a child, Meg.’
‘No,’ Meg conceded grudgingly as Ellie stepped out. ‘But you needn’t try to kid me that you’re in his league either!’
It was no comfort to be reminded of that salient fact. Ellie was already far too well aware of it. One reckless night which could well change the whole course of her life, she reflected with a feeling shiver. Her mother had been a single parent. Ellie knew better than most just how difficult it was to raise a child alone. She was probably being foolishly pessimistic, she told herself. Even so, she decided to buy a kit and do a pregnancy test for herself the following day. It would be a lot quicker than waiting to get an appointment with her doctor.
She was emerging from one of the offices on level eight when the lift next to the reception area pinged. She turned her head, expecting to see the security guard on his round, and froze when she saw Dio Alexiakis striding down the corridor towards her.
This time she noticed every tiny detail of his appearance. He was wearing a superb silver-grey suit, cut to enhance every powerful line of his magnificent physique. Her heartbeat thudded preternaturally slow in her eardrums. His lean, dark features had a slightly keener edge then she recalled; his sensational cheekbones were more defined, the hollows below a little deeper. But even the faint shadows now etched beneath his stunning eyes added an exotic tinge of drama to his spectacular good-looks, she reflected in a sudden surge of bitter anger. She hated the way he made her feel. Breathless and excited, and then foolish and unbearably sad…
Ellie spun away and plugged in the floor-polisher, determined just to get on with her job. The polisher fired into noisy motion but almost as suddenly lost power.
Ellie whirled round. Having switched off the electric current, Dio straightened, surveying her disconcerted f
ace with brilliant black eyes of challenge. ‘Stop running away,’ he derided.
Unprepared for that angle of attack, Ellie said tautly, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’
‘Yes, you do. You’re trying to hide behind the fact that you work for me. But it’s too late for that,’ Dio told her with sardonic cool.
‘I just want you to leave me alone.’
Dio gazed steadily back at her. ‘Every time you look at me, you tell me the exact opposite.’ He reached down for her hand before she could guess his intention. ‘Your pulse is racing. You’re trembling—’
‘With annoyance!’ Ellie tugged her wrist free and spun away again. ‘I know what I want out of life and, believe me, you’re not part of the package!’
‘What features in the package?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘I really want to know,’ Dio confirmed levelly.
‘All right. I’m hoping to buy the bookshop. That’s why I run two jobs. I’ve been saving up for a long time and I’ll be applying for a loan soon,’ she admitted flatly.
‘I’ll offer you a loan now, on a straight business basis,’ Dio informed her lazily.
Ellie groaned out loud in frustration, marched into the next office down the corridor and snatched up the wastepaper bin. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she condemned when she emerged again. ‘I don’t want any favours. I don’t need any help.’
‘But you’re making your employment here a barrier between us.’
‘Dio…you wouldn’t recognise a solid brick wall as a barrier!’ Ellie snapped.
‘I shouldn’t have asked you to be my mistress,’ he murmured sibilantly.
Ellie was tempted into looking at him again, the hard knot of anger inside her loosening ever so slightly. ‘No—’
‘It was too soon,’ Dio completed.
‘You are a really slow learner!’ Ellie delivered with waspish bite.
Vibrant amusement shimmered in his stunning dark eyes. ‘I’ve missed having you around, pethi mou.’
That smile warmed her like summer sunshine. She dragged her eyes from him, as if that sudden heat burned her. ‘So you’re bored with sycophancy and in need of novelty. Have you ever thought of a dating agency?’
‘You finish work soon. Let me take you out to eat somewhere.’
Ellie studied him where he lounged up against the door like a sleek, dark predator at rest. He aroused the most terrifyingly powerful hunger in her. She thought of all the nights she had tossed and turned, unable to get him out of her mind and hating herself for being so weak she couldn’t control her own thoughts. But there it was, this aching, hurting craving that went way beyond physical desire…
‘Ellie…’ Dio prompted gently.
‘I finish work and go to bed, Dio,’ she stressed curtly, bending down to plug in the polisher again.
‘So we skip the food.’
Anger lancing through her in response to that provocative suggestion, Ellie came upright again very fast. But that sudden movement engulfed her in a wave of dizziness. Her view of Dio and the well-lit corridor lurched, and then blurred out of focus. With a muffled gasp of fright she went down and down into the beckoning darkness, her legs crumpling beneath her.
When Ellie began to recover consciousness, she felt nauseous and dazed. Her lashes lifted slowly. Dio was so close she could see the tiny golden lights in his eyes and every inky individual spike of his lush lashes. They were in a lift and he was carrying her, she finally registered, twin discoveries which confused her even more. ‘Dio…’
‘What?’ he demanded with unconcealed aggression, powerful arms tightening round her to keep her firmly wedged against his hard, muscular chest.
‘What happened?’ she mumbled heavily.
‘You fainted.’
A frown indented her damp brow as she fought to regain her wits. ‘I don’t faint…’
‘I’ve had it with this cleaning lark,’ Dio ground out, his jawline squaring. ‘It’s obvious that you’re not fit for it.’
‘Dio…put me down!’
‘If I put you down, you’ll fall over again! You look terrible, but then that’s not very surprising, is it?’ Dio continued in the same accusing tone. ‘You work six days a week in that bookshop, and more than half the time you’re left to cope on your own there.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ellie gasped, taken aback by his knowledge.
‘I made it my business to know.’ Black eyes gleamed down into hers. ‘Your other employer has got it made. He wanders in around lunchtime and heads home again mid-afternoon. How can you expect to work all day and then put in five nights here in a physically demanding job?’
‘I’m young, and healthy as a horse,’ Ellie protested as the lift doors sprang open, belatedly prompting her to demand to know where on earth he was taking her.
‘I’m taking you home.’ With long, forceful strides, Dio headed out across the ground-floor foyer towards the line of exit doors.
With difficulty, Ellie dragged her attention from him and took in the presence of the security guards at the main reception area. One of them was rushing to get a door open. The other two were gazing rigidly into space with the fixed expressions of men who had had a really good look at them coming out of the lift but were determined not to betray any reaction that might cause offence.
Belatedly appreciating the spectacle Dio was making of them both, Ellie groaned out loud. ‘How am I ever going to work here again after this?’
‘Goodnight, Mr Alexiakis,’ the guard swinging open the door said stiltedly.
‘Ne…yes, it is a good night,’ Dio drawled with a truly staggering lack of self-consciousness.
Ellie just closed her eyes tight, feeling the cool air of outdoors chill her burning cheeks. ‘If I didn’t still feel so awful, I’d strangle you for this, Dio!’
Unrepentant, Dio stowed her in the back seat of the waiting limousine and swung in beside her. ‘We have to wait,’ he advanced. ‘Demitrios is clearing your locker out.’
Ellie noted the finality of that statement, but she was past caring. With the slamming of a door, the car moved off a few minutes later. Only when mind over matter appeared to be winning and her stomach had settled back to normality did she risk opening her eyes again. Dio was lounging back in one corner, surveying her with slumbrous dark eyes filled with satisfaction.
‘Don’t look at me like that!’ she told him thinly.
‘What way am I looking at you?’ he murmured huskily.
The same way she had once seen a man study his new car. With the proud possessiveness of ownership. ‘Nothing’s changed,’ she warned him feverishly.
‘Sometimes,’ Dio responded with indolent cool, ‘you are incredibly naive.’
‘On the island. Not any more,’ Ellie qualified with deliberate acidity. ‘And if naive is what you like, well…with your money I’m sure you’ll find plenty of takers.’
A slow-burning smile curved his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Where would I find a woman with the courage to be as scathing as you?’
‘If I were you, I’d be getting worried about what you find attractive in a woman!’
Dio loosed an appreciative laugh. ‘You challenge me. I enjoy the fact that you’re not impressed by who I am and what I possess. You have no idea how rare a quality that is in my world.’
Ellie tore her attention from the devastating magnetism of his lean dark features, her mouth running dry at the effort even that small amount of self-denial took. She remembered the deference of his relatives at the villa, the invisible boundary line which had enabled him to mix without once being challenged by a more personal approach. His icy reserve had held them all at a polite and formal distance. Only not her. Her pride had demanded that she be treated like an equal.
Yet, had she been awestruck and silent around Dio Alexiakis, she would not now be facing potential disaster, Ellie conceded heavily. If she was pregnant, how on earth was she going to cope? Ellie’s careful plans f
or her future had not catered for the possibility of a child. Indeed, those plans had revolved round the necessity of working very long hours well into the foreseeable future. Servicing a large business loan would swallow up a good deal of the income the shop brought in; increasing profit margins would take both time and further investment. Ellie breathed in shakily and struggled to suppress her growing apprehension. Until she had confirmation one way or the other tomorrow, it was foolish to get herself into a state.
‘All of a sudden you’re a thousand miles away,’ Dio drawled.
Ellie blinked and looked back at him, only then realising that the limo had drawn to a halt.
‘Of course, you’re exhausted,’ he conceded grimly.
‘No, I think I might be pregnant.’ Ellie blurted out that admission without the slightest forethought.
Dio froze in shock. Indeed ‘shock’, she noted, was not an excessive word to describe his reaction. Stunned black eyes clashed with hers. His strong bone structure clenched hard and he turned pale beneath his bronzed skin.
‘Maybe…maybe I should’ve worked up to saying it…somehow,’ Ellie mumbled, although she couldn’t imagine any way in which such a bombshell could be delivered gently. She hadn’t meant to tell him, hadn’t even toyed with the idea of telling him, but the level of her stress had betrayed her.
In the enervated state she was in, she had left the car and allowed herself to be pressed across an imposing entrance hall and straight into another lift before she actually registered that she was not where she had expected to be.
Ellie frowned in bemusement. ‘You said you were taking me home…’
‘I thought we’d be more comfortable at my apartment,’ Dio imparted.
‘You called me sneaky. I don’t know where you get the nerve,’ Ellie remarked brittly.
All of a sudden every silence simply screamed. She didn’t want to think about what she had impulsively blurted out in the limo. She definitely didn’t want to talk about it. What had she expected from Dio? In this scenario a trouble shared would not mean a trouble halved.