Kizzy’s hand trembled as she produced a folder that held hours of work and represented many nights of lost sleep. “So you’re not even going to look at this then?” She couldn’t just give up.
“There’s no point. The numbers speak for themselves. The business is a dead duck.”
“But I can turn it round. Just give me a chance.”
He shrugged. “I can’t.”
“You can’t?” Kizzy replied bitterly. “I don’t believe you.”
For one inexplicable moment, Andreas was tempted to inform her that as executor of his mother’s will he was merely carrying out her wishes. But he restrained himself. Whatever he had to do in England was none of her business and he was not in the habit of explaining himself to anyone.
He took a step nearer and lowered his face to within an inch of hers.
“Okay then, let’s make this simple. I won’t!” He frowned harder, rattled for some reason by the altercation. “Besides, there are other factors, things about which you know nothing. I admire your spirit, but Timi’s has to go.”
“But I came all this way, even prepared a presentation for you—”
“I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.” Andreas Lazarides waved his hand dismissively. “But it was you who insisted on coming here with all your big ideas after hounding the office for weeks until I gave in. And that was just to stop Isabella moaning about your twice-daily calls. To be frank, you’ve made a bloody nuisance of yourself. This unpleasantness could have been settled much more conveniently by e-mail.”
Anger simmered in Kizzy’s belly. Such persistence hadn’t come easily to her, but she had been so sure that her new boss would have a speck of fair play about him and that he would at least listen. She had been terribly wrong about the Greek business tycoon.
“Instinct tells me that you would have found me much easier to ignore by e-mail, Mr. Lazarides. I wouldn’t put it past you to have dumped me straight into the spam folder, unread.”
“There is every possibility of that, yes. And then I imagine I would have pressed ‘delete.’ It would have been an enormous relief.”
Kizzy felt the metaphorical slap in the face, and then the random kicks for good measure. She felt herself tremble. In spite of everything she had done at the restaurant following its sale to Heliades International Inc., her future now looked utterly bleak.
Any excitement or optimism she had felt that morning had evaporated.
“What a mess.” She tipped her head skyward to contain the humiliated tear she felt growing in the corner of her eye. “I was so certain about all this. I went over it so many times in my head, on paper and spreadsheets.”
“It is most unfortunate,” he muttered.
Kizzy lowered her gaze, summoning hidden reserves to challenge the black ice that crackled mercilessly in his eyes. “Listen, I’d never have sunk what was left of my savings into the taverna if Mr. Antonides hadn’t promised me it was going to be a long-term thing, that you supported appointing a manager to run the place when he retired. There was no indication that I was going to have the rug pulled right out from under my feet.”
“You’ve spent your own money on the venture? That was a pretty stupid thing to do. Managers take a salary; they don’t go ‘investing’ all over the place.” Andreas shook his head at her in disbelief. “Your file says you’re a graduate, a woman with a brain. What on earth made you act so dumb?”
He’d read her file?
She felt the tenacious tear drip onto the floor, and loathed her lack of control. But there seemed to be little point in keeping up appearances now.
“Timi’s is all I have left; it’s my home and only source of income. Or it was.” The silence was as heavy as the sky was becoming dark. “I can’t believe this is what the Antonideses intended. They’re friends. And they’re going to be so upset when I tell them what’s happened.”
Andreas reached her in three long strides and gripped her by the upper arm. “You will tell them nothing! Nothing at all, do you hear?” His grip only loosened as he registered the shock on her face. “They must never hear of this. Never.”
Kizzy’s brain was now a confused tangle. The Antonideses had been like family to her since her mother died, and she was still in regular contact with them. In fact, Mrs. Antonides had e-mailed a few pictures of their new villa that morning, so it would be impossible not to tell them without being dishonest.
The first acrid threads of anger and indignation began to rise to her defense; roughly, she wrenched her arm free.
“And why the hell shouldn’t I tell them? To protect your reputation or something?” Kizzy let out a bitter laugh. “You want me to lie for you, is that it? I don’t think so.”
“You have no idea what damage you could cause with that mouth of yours. The Antonideses are good people who have worked hard, asked for little and given back a hundred-fold all they received. But they are not good businesspeople. Incredibly proud, but hopeless with money.” He began to pace the floor, and heads turned in the adjacent capsule as he spoke tersely, gesturing. “How do you think they’ll feel if you tell them their lives’ work was just a mountain of debt? That it was all for nothing? And then you intend heaping guilt on them for leaving poor little you in the gutter!”
“No! I’d never—”
“Your indiscretion will ruin their happy retirement and condemn them to spend the rest of their lives in shame and regret. Believe me, Miss Dean, I know how these people are. Prouder and more honorable than you could ever imagine. Besides that, no one owes you a living either; times are hard for everyone right now.” He raked a hand through his black hair. “And please. You’re a pretty little graduate, you can get a reasonable job if you apply yourself, so spare me the crocodile tears.”
Kizzy snapped her jaw shut, crushing her teeth together so hard it hurt. She’d stupidly let him see her cry and he’d pounced on that moment of incredible vulnerability.
No one owes you a living.
As if she didn’t know that already. The man was a beast.
“Of course I would do anything to avoid hurting Theo and Ana. They don’t deserve that.”
He fixed her with a stare as hard and cold as stone. “So how much do you want?”
Kizzy swallowed back more bitter, acid tears. “What?”
“You heard me,” he replied, dark lashes narrowing his eyes until it looked as if he was sneering at her. “How much do I have to pay you to say that you have decided to resign your position, and then to sign a legal document promising you won’t do anything to cause mental or emotional harm to the Antonides family?”
Kizzy’s mouth gaped with disbelief that this dreadful man could think so badly of her. “I told you I would never hurt them deliberately!”
Andreas pretended to choke on a hollow laugh. “And why on earth should I believe that?”
“Because I said so?” Kizzy folded her arms tightly across her chest to stop her hands from shaking.
“What? You? The woman who introduced herself to me as my very own secretary of five years? Who lied with the very first breaths of London air we shared? I can’t take that risk.” Andreas turned abruptly away and, raising both palms above his head, leaned against the cool glass of the capsule window. “I might be a bastard, but I’m not an idiot. Name your price.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“No?” He laughed unpleasantly and pushed himself away from the window. “I find that almost impossible to believe, since you lost everything you possessed in the world only a few seconds ago. So, tell me, what do you want?”
“I want back what’s been taken from me. My job, my home, and my plans for the future. I don’t want your handouts, or anyone else’s for that matter. All I want is the chance to prove myself and to earn my way out of—to earn a reasonable living. Enough to be independent.”
“Interesting.”
Kizzy was beginning to feel more annoyed than upset now that all seemed to be lost and her best efforts had come to
nothing. “Well, I’m so glad you think so,” she replied.
At least she’d stopped crying now, Andreas thought disparagingly. “So,” he began. “Would you consider yourself to be a risk-taker?”
Kizzy regarded him suspiciously. “I’m not sure.”
He waited for a moment to see if she would elaborate. “Or do you perhaps see yourself spending the next forty or so years in a dusty office ticking boxes for a living?”
Kizzy’s thoughts strayed to her late mother as she posed in a very old photograph, young, beautiful, and deliciously wild with large golden hoops in her ears. She yearned to be cast to the four winds by circumstance. She would relish the freedom and exhilaration but there were the debts to consider, a bitter legacy she had to bear. She couldn’t just run away from that.
“Absolutely not,” she told him.
“How brave are you feeling at the moment?” Andreas asked, his expression deadly.
Kizzy was perplexed at the tone of his question; something had changed behind those demanding black eyes of his. “I think this is the bravest I’ve ever had to be in my life.”
He gestured to the London skyline. “Brave enough to leave this place straight away? To leave London with me?”
Kizzy stared at him blankly, unable to work out what was going on inside their huge, floating bubble of glass. “Leave? Now?”
“In the next thirty minutes.”
“And go where exactly?”
“Somewhere I can keep a close eye on you until I sort out some legal guarantees between us. I agree to provide you with work and accommodation in return for your cooperation with regard to the Antonides family. The ‘future’ part is up to you, but you’ll have the tools to make it happen. I want you to come to Greece with me. The island of Rhodes, to be precise.”
“But I’ve nothing with me, no spare clothes.”
“Don’t worry.” A slow smile formed as his dark eyes trailed her body from head to toe. “You won’t be needing many clothes.”
Chapter Two
Kizzy blinked away the fierce sunshine of Rhodes and, in spite of her previous protestations, flipped down the designer sunglasses that Andreas had insisted on buying her…along with a wardrobe’s worth of the finest silk and linen daywear money could buy.
“So, still want your woolen suit back? And those stockings?” Andreas flicked Kizzy a condescending smile, then urged her to speed up as he marched her through one of the ancient stone gates in the city ramparts toward the harbor.
“That wouldn’t be very sensible under the circumstances. They did have a run in them,” Kizzy replied breathlessly. His strides were a good deal longer than hers.
She tossed her head belligerently, glad of the sunglasses in case her eyes gave away just how intimidated and awestruck she was feeling.
It had cut her to the core having to accept an entirely new and outrageously expensive set of clothes. But Andreas had insisted. He’d said it was a non-negotiable part of the deal.
She had, however, managed to salvage a shred of pride by refusing to try on anything that could not be justified as necessary for everyday practical purposes, leaving her with a few casual pieces and a couple of smarter combinations that would do for business, whatever that would amount to. And just two pairs of shoes. Flat ones.
“I didn’t ask for all this stuff,” she pointed out. “If you’d given me time to go home and pack, I could have saved you a fortune.”
“And let you loose on my hard-earned business interests dressed like some backwater funeral director? That suit was…” He cocked his head to one side and surveyed her slowly from head to toe. “Let’s just say you’re better off being guided on such matters.”
Kizzy stopped dead in her tracks. Her cheeks sizzled with indignation. This man was so insulting. “I’ve never had money to burn, as it happens,” she replied, with undisguised contempt.
“Well I do, and most women would lap it up. So what’s your problem?”
“Problem?” Kizzy let out a hollow laugh. “You’ve turned my whole world on its head, flown me thousands of miles, insulted my dress sense, and my integrity, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing apart from keeping my mouth shut of course.” She frowned. “I’m curious, Mr. Lazarides. Just what sort of job am I here to do?”
Andreas tightened his lips thoughtfully and took a moment to savor the amethyst fire that was dancing in her eyes. Kizzy Dean was clearly not going to be the fawning, simpering variety of female he was accustomed to, employee or otherwise. Her manner was irritating, in that it was beginning to take up more of his valuable time than he’d like, but there was something else happening. A dart of amusement hit him. This was like being attacked by an angry dormouse—painless enough, but impossible to ignore.
“I’ve not decided yet. I intend to assess your skills over the next few days, to see what can be done with you.” He allowed his eyes to drop to her new silk camisole as it fluttered against her breasts in the breeze, deliberately provoking more annoyance by studying her at length. “But we won’t go rushing you into haute couture or customer relations.”
“You promised me a job,” Kizzy pointed out, only belatedly realizing that he had her at a complete disadvantage. She didn’t speak a word of Greek, had no money and nowhere to go.
She then remembered with horror that he hadn’t returned her passport at the airport, so she had no form of identification either. She felt the blood drain from her face as her hand strayed to a nonexistent inside pocket. He’d taken her cell phone to call his driver in London—he still had that too. There was nothing to stop him from just dumping her in the middle of the ocean and leaving her to drown. No one was going to raise the alarm in England now, were they?
“And a job you shall have, plus accommodation. But if you can’t behave yourself and are determined to be difficult, the chances are you will get a mediocre, undemanding job.” Lazarides was clearly enjoying her discomfort. His chin lifted, baiting her. “If you are a good girl, however…”
Kizzy’s dry mouth opened to deliver a blistering response, but before she could reply her attention was drawn down to the left hand side of her body. The hem of her expensive new cream jacket appeared to be trapped. The fabric was suddenly dragging at her body, tugging her insistently backward and down to…a child. Large avocado stone eyes stared up, from a sallow, dirty face that had cheekbones just a little too prominent for a boy of what Kizzy estimated to be nine or ten years old. The boy’s face broke into a nervous smile as he began to pump away at a battered accordion.
“Parakalo?” he ventured, holding out a dirty, trembling hand.
“What’s he saying?” Kizzy asked as she instinctively went to brush the matted hair out of his eyes.
“What do you think he’s saying? He’s begging for money.” Andreas thrust out his own hand to block her palm from making contact with the little boy. “And begging is frowned upon—especially here, where he’s likely to offend and annoy most of the super-yacht owners he encounters. He’s also infested with lice.”
Kizzy felt an icy wave course through her body in spite of the searing heat. It was only a matter of hours ago that she had been a disheveled, pitiful mess at the mercy of this coldhearted Greek. Her heart went out to the waif.
“But look at the state of him. Couldn’t we give him something?”
“Absolutely not.”
Andreas eased himself between Kizzy and the puny wretch, and bent to issue a few harsh phrases in Greek. The child’s eyes opened wide to show their blemished whites and he quickly snatched up an old ice cream tub containing a few coins from the dusty promenade. Kizzy stared open-mouthed as the boy ran away as fast as he could in dirty, worn, adult-sized trainers that swamped his tiny feet. They flapped noisily around his ankles and Kizzy felt her insides twist with sickening fury.
She turned on Andreas so abruptly that a thick skein of chestnut hair escaped the cheap clip that still secured her chignon. She brushed it angrily away. “Some food wouldn�
��t have hurt the boy, would it?”
“You have no understanding of the way things are here.” Andreas gestured dismissively with a sweep of his arm and, turning his back on her, strode toward the harbor’s edge. Briskly, he began to descend the steps that led down to the water before asserting himself further. “I do. So accept my judgment on this matter.”
“Do as I’m told, in other words?”
Kizzy swallowed angry tears as she stared furiously down into that impassive expression. His indifferent shrug chilled her to the bone. His eyes were harsh as volcanic rock.
Andreas indicated that she should step aboard the speedboat that was waiting for them. His lips thinned to an angry slash as he noted her continuing mutiny. “We have a schedule,” he pointed out, and stepped on board, roughly offering her a hand as the vessel bobbed about in the creamy swell.
“I wish I could afford to walk away from all this,” Kizzy hissed, standing motionless on the stone steps. She continued to stare into the abyss of his exacting gaze. “Away from you.”
“Well, I do believe you can’t.”
He pulled her firmly downward by the wrist, ensuring that she fell into the unyielding cradle of his chest and upper arms.
“And I would appreciate it if you could start behaving in a respectable manner in public,” Andreas Lazarides whispered harshly against her ear. “I wouldn’t want your insubordination to rub off on the rest of my staff.”
“Oh for—”
Kizzy stifled a novel urge to swear at him, and hauled herself free. She reminded herself that a huge loan repayment was due in under a week’s time and she still had no means of meeting it.
“I hope you don’t think I’m impressed by this dingy!”
Andreas flicked her a bleak look from beneath his dark brows. “I’m not in the habit of trying to impress dishonest barmaids. Especially unemployed ones.”
Vitriol coursed through her veins in reaction to this barbed remark. She couldn’t stop herself from blurting out the most insulting thing she could manage at short notice. “So you’ve got a boat as well as your own private plane.” She sniffed ostentatiously. “It’s not the biggest in the harbor though, is it? I would have expected it to match the size of your ego…and heartlessness.”
Kidnapped by the Greek Billionaire Page 2