She tried to put it—and him—out of her mind, though it wasn’t easy on the flight back to England. Especially when the stewardess had answered her studiedly casual query about Xan by informing her that Mr Constantinides had summoned his own jet and left Zahristan earlier that morning.
But the anxious wait to discover if she was carrying his baby was even harder when she was back in London and the whole thing seemed like a dream. Tamsyn tried all kinds of coping mechanisms. Just like she’d promised Hannah, she threw herself into her latest job—working in a steam-filled café in one of the tiny back roads near Covent Garden, which was mainly frequented by taxi drivers. It wasn’t the best-paid work she’d ever done and it certainly wasn’t the most exciting. She suspected it had been called The Greasy Spoon in an ironic sense, though it certainly lived up to is name since no meal was served unless it was swimming in its own pool of oil. But she wasn’t going to waste hours hunting for some rewarding position which was never going to materialise. She needed to be busy—doing something other than neurotically ticking off the endlessly long days as she waited for her period. She needed to focus on something other than the fact that her first and only lover had not bothered to seek her out—not even to enquire whether she had arrived home safely.
She hated the way she kept glancing at her phone. Even though she hadn’t given him her number, hadn’t part of her thought—hoped—that the Greek tycoon might have somehow tracked her down? It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that he could have asked the Sheikh, was it? But deep down Tamsyn knew she was clutching at straws and it was never going to happen. For a man to go to the trouble of finding you, he had to like you enough to want to see you again. And you certainly didn’t have to like a woman in order to have sex with her.
But she wasn’t going to beat herself up about it. She hadn’t planned on being intimate with Xan, but she hadn’t planned to be a virgin for ever either. She had been waiting—not for a wedding band, because marriage was something she simply wasn’t interested in. No. She had been waiting for someone to make her feel desire—real, bone-melting desire—even though she’d secretly thought it would never happen. Yet it had. Xan Constantinides might not be a keeper, but she wasn’t deluded enough to deny that he’d had a profound effect on her.
So she tried to be practical rather than wistful. She would probably see him again at the naming ceremony of Kulal and Hannah’s baby, sometime in the not too distant future. And before that happened, she would need to school herself in the art of pretending not to care. If she worked on it hard enough, she might actually have achieved that blissful state by then. Her heart pounded. And if she was pregnant, what then? Then the world would look like a very different place.
But then her period arrived and for some inexplicable reason, she cried and cried. But not for long, because she knew tears were a waste of energy. She just carried on getting up every morning and going to work. It was dark when she started and dark when she finished and although spring was just around the corner, the bitter wind was harsh and unremitting.
And then she had one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong. A customer queried his change, causing the sharp-eyed manageress to watch her like a hawk, which made Tamsyn clumsier than usual. Outside, heavy rain was bashing against the window, making the steamed-up café resemble a sauna, and some inane pop quiz was blaring from the radio, the words incomprehensible above the laddish shouts of conversation. She had just muddled up two egg orders and was anticipating the kind of stern lecture which usually preceded being asked to leave a job, when the doorbell tinged and unusually, the whole place became silent.
Tamsyn looked up as a reverential hush fell over the boisterous customers and she had another of those slow motion moments. Because it was Xan. Xan Constantinides was walking into the crowded café and every single eye in the place was fixed on him.
She wasn’t surprised. Not just because his costly clothes proclaimed his billionaire status, it was more the sense that he was a super-being—somehow larger than life and more good-looking than anyone had a right to be. His rain-spattered dark overcoat was made of fine cashmere and she doubted whether any other Greasy Spoon customer had ever worn handmade shoes, or moved with such a powerful sense of purpose.
She hated the instinctive ripple of recognition which shivered through her body. Hated the sudden clench of her nipples beneath the manmade fabric of her uniform. He was walking towards her, those cobalt eyes fixed firmly on hers and Tamsyn was doing her best to look at him with the kind of politely questioning smile she would give to any other customer, even though she wanted to spit venom at him. But the manageress was literally elbowing her out of the way, surreptitiously patting the bright red perm which the steam had turned to frizz, her fifty-year-old face filled with the gushing excitement of a schoolgirl as she stepped forward.
‘Can I ’elp you, sir?’
Was Xan clued-up enough to realise the power structure which was being acted out in front of him? Was that why he turned the full wattage of his incredible smile on the manageress? Or maybe that’s just what came naturally, thought Tamsyn disgustedly. Maybe he used his remarkable charisma as a means to an end, no matter where he was.
‘You certainly can,’ said Xan, his honeyed Greek accent sounding almost obscenely erotic. ‘I was wondering if I might borrow Tamsyn for a little while?’
The woman’s smile instantly turned into a grimace. ‘She doesn’t finish her shift until seven,’ she answered unhelpfully.
And that was when Tamsyn piped up—and to hell with the consequences. She stared at Xan, determined not to be affected by the gleam of his gaze as she tried desperately to forget the last time she’d seen that powerful body. Yet how could she forget all that olive-skinned splendour as he’d held her tightly in his arms? Or discount the temporary sanctuary he’d provided as he rocked in and out of her body all night.
And then he had left her. Had walked away as if she didn’t exist. Left her open to pain and self-doubt. Was she going to keep coming back for more?
‘You can’t borrow me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a book you take from the library.’
‘Tamsyn! I will not have you speaking to a customer like that!’ the manageress cut in, revelling in the opportunity to administer a public telling-off.
‘Please.’ Xan’s intervention was smooth. ‘It’s no problem. I can see you’re very busy here and unable to spare her. I’ll come back at seven, if that’s okay.’
Tamsyn wanted to scream at them to stop talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room, because hadn’t that been what all those case-workers used to do when they held those interminable meetings to discover why she kept bunking off school? And she wanted her stupid, betraying body to stop reacting to the Greek. She didn’t want to look at the sensual curve of his lips and be reminded of how it had felt to have him kiss her. ‘I’m busy at seven,’ she said.
The cobalt eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ It was a lie, but Tamsyn didn’t care—because surely a small white lie was preferable to doing or saying something you might later regret. And she didn’t owe him anything.
‘Then when are you free?’ he persisted.
‘I’m not,’ Tamsyn answered. ‘There’s absolutely nothing I want to say to you, Xan. It’s over. You made that perfectly clear. So if you’ll excuse me—the kitchen has just rung the bell with another order.’
And with that, she marched over to the aluminium serving hatch to pick up the bacon butty which was already growing cold.
CHAPTER SIX
STANDING HUDDLED IN a shop doorway opposite the now dark café, Xan waited for Tamsyn to emerge but it was already ten after seven and still she hadn’t shown.
The shop doorway remained defiantly closed and he wondered if perhaps she’d slipped away unseen from the back of the building. He wondered what lengths she would go to in order to avoid him.
What?
That she would be deliriously happy to see him, despite him having failed to contact her after their passionate night at the palace? Despite the fact that he’d hired a private jet to get away from Zahristan as quickly as possible the next morning, after leaving her only the briefest of notes, and then had disappeared for the best part of three months?
Yes. That’s exactly what he’d imagined because it had happened so often before. Women took whatever crumbs he was prepared to offer them. They were grateful for anything they got and even when they complained it wasn’t enough, they still came back for more. He’d meant it when he’d told Tamsyn he wasn’t deliberately cruel—despite the tearful accusations sometimes hurled at him in the past. He was just genuinely detached. He’d learnt detachment from the moment he’d left the womb—that was one of the inevitable legacies of having a mother who was so bogged down with self-pity that she barely deigned to notice her child. He never raised hopes unnecessarily, or proceeded with a relationship if the odds were stacked against it. And breaking the heart of his friend’s new sister-in-law was never going to be on the cards.
He shouldn’t have bedded her in the first place which was why he hadn’t hung around the day after the wedding. Why he’d deliberately avoided seeing her and instead gone riding with the Sheikh, who had seemed to have enough problems of his own without Xan adding to them.
He had waited for the dust to settle and his libido to cool and for a short period of time to elapse. Then he had flown out to his beautiful waterfront estate in Argolida on the Peloponnese Peninsula, to begin the future which had been mapped out for him so long ago. There had been several meetings with the young woman he’d once agreed to marry and he had gone through the motions of what was expected of him. It should have been simple, but it had turned out to be anything but. He had stumbled at the first hurdle—he who never stumbled. Failure wasn’t a word which featured in his vocabulary and for weeks he had attempted to cajole then scold himself into a state of acceptance—an acceptance which had stubbornly refused to materialise. He’d witnessed Sofia’s bewilderment as he struggled to find the right things to say. He had pictured his father’s distress when he explained that the marriage was a no-go he should never have agreed to. For the first time in his life he hadn’t known which way to turn. If he married Sofia he could not make her happy, but if he walked away—what then? Her pride would be wounded and his family’s reputation tarnished.
It had been at the beginning of a conference call with the Sheikh last week that a solution had suddenly occurred to Xan. It wasn’t perfect—but then, what in life could be regarded as perfect? But it would suffice. It would have to. And surely it was better than the alternative.
His throat dried as the café door swung open and Tamsyn stepped out into the rainy night and suddenly every thought drained from his mind. Yet why should his heart race like a train when she was dressed so unbecomingly? In her faded jeans and ugly padded jacket, she shouldn’t have merited a second glance. But something seemed to happen to his vision whenever Tamsyn Wilson was around and he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her. It had happened the first time he’d laid eyes on her but it was a whole lot worse now. Was it because, despite her sassiness and outspokenness, she had been an innocent virgin—thus defying all his jaded expectations? He kept replaying that moment when he’d first penetrated her sweet tightness and she’d made that choking little cry, her mouth open and moist as it had sucked helplessly against his shoulder.
Her hair was tied back, her ponytail flowing behind her like a curly red banner, but her face was pale. So pale. From here you couldn’t see the freckles which spattered her skin like gold. He found himself remembering the ones which reposed in the soft flesh of her inner thighs. How he had whispered his tongue over them...tantalising and teasing her, before bringing her to yet another jerking orgasm, which had left her shuddering against his mouth.
He began to walk towards her, aided by the red gleam of the traffic lights which was reflecting off the wet road like spilled blood. And then she saw him, her eyes first widening and then narrowing as she put her head down and increased her speed and Xan felt a flicker of excitement as he realised she was trying to get away from him, just like she’d done at the palace. Did she really think she would outpace him? Didn’t she realise he’d seen the yearning look of hunger in her eyes when he’d walked into that steamy café, and it had echoed the hunger in him?
‘Tamsyn!’
‘Can’t you take a hint?’ she shouted back over her shoulder. ‘Just go away, Xan!’
She didn’t slow down as he followed her along the wet pavement but he caught her up easily enough, his long strides easily outperforming her small, rapid steps. ‘We need to talk,’ he said, as he caught up with her.
She stopped then. Lifted up her chin to glare at him and the raindrops glistened like diamonds on her freckled skin as she stood beneath the golden flare of the streetlamp.
‘But that’s where you’re wrong!’ she contradicted fervently. ‘We don’t need to do anything. Why would we when there’s nothing between us? Didn’t you make it plain that’s what you wanted when you slipped out of bed that morning, taking great care not to wake me?’
‘Why?’ he parried softly. ‘Did you want there to be something between us?’
‘In your dreams!’ she declared. ‘Even if I did want to get involved with a man—which I don’t—you’re the last person on the planet I’d ever choose! I already told you that.’
A low sigh of relief escaped from his lips and some of the tension left him. ‘That’s probably the best news I’ve heard all week,’ he said. ‘And yet another reason why we need to have a conversation.’
Tamsyn steeled herself against the sexy dip in his voice, brushing the rain away from her cheeks with an impatient fist. ‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she hissed. ‘I’m not interested in what you’ve got to say, Xan. I’ve just been sacked and it’s all your fault.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘My fault?’
‘Yes! If you hadn’t come into the cafe—swaggering around the place as if you owned it and demanding I take a break I wasn’t entitled to—then I’d still have a job. Your attitude made me so angry so that I answered you back, giving that witch of a manageress the ideal opportunity to tell me not to bother coming back tomorrow.’
‘So that’s the only reason you were fired?’ he questioned slowly.
Tamsyn told herself she didn’t have to answer. That she owed him nothing—and certainly not an explanation. Yet it was difficult to withstand the perceptive gleam in his eyes or not to be affected by the sudden understanding that since Hannah had gone away to live in the desert, she really was on her own. That once again she was jobless, with nobody to turn to—with outstanding rent to pay on her overpriced bedsit. Giving a suddenly deflated sigh, she shrugged, all the energy needed to maintain the fiction of her life suddenly draining away. ‘Not the only reason, no,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I guess I’m fundamentally unsuited to being a waitress.’
Beneath the streetlight, his eyes gleamed. ‘All the more reason for you to have dinner with me, since I have a proposition to put to you which you might find interesting.’
The suggestion was so unexpected that Tamsyn blinked. ‘What sort of proposition?’
Tiny droplets of rain flew like diamonds from the tangle of his ebony hair as he shook his head. ‘This isn’t a conversation to have in the rain. Let’s find a restaurant where we can talk.’
Her stomach chose that moment to make an angry little rumble and Tamsyn realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She told herself it was hunger which made her consider his suggestion—it definitely wasn’t because she was reluctant to see him walk out of her life for a second time. But then she looked at her damp jeans and realised what a mess she looked. ‘I can’t possibly go out looking like this.’
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br /> ‘You could go home first and get changed.’ He gave a small inclination of his head. ‘I have a car here.’
Tamsyn stiffened as a black limousine began to drive slowly towards them. Was he out of his mind? Did he really think she’d let someone like him within a mile of her scrubby little bedsit? She could just imagine the shock on his over-privileged face if he caught sight of the damp walls and the electric kettle which was covered in lime-scale. ‘I live miles away.’
‘Then let’s just go to the Granchester.’
Tamsyn nearly choked as he casually mentioned the exclusive hotel where her sister used to work before being fired for sleeping with one of the guests. ‘The Granchester is just about the most expensive hotel in London,’ she objected. ‘We’ll never be able to get a table at this short notice, and even if we could there’s no way I could go somewhere like that for dinner, wearing this.’
‘Oh, we’ll a get a table,’ he said smoothly, as the limousine drew up beside them. ‘And my cousin’s wife Emma is staying there at the moment. You look about the same size as her. She’ll lend you something to wear.’
Tamsyn shook her head. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. I can’t possibly borrow a dress from a complete stranger!’
‘Of course you can.’ He spoke with the confidence of someone unused to being thwarted, as he opened the door of the car and gently pushed her inside. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll fix it.’
Afterwards Tamsyn would put her uncharacteristic compliance down to his distracting presence, or maybe it was just his sheer certainty. She’d never experienced the sensation of a man taking control of a situation in such an unflappable way. She wasn’t used to someone offering to fix things. She was used to drama and chaos. She wondered if there was some biological chink in her armour which made her yield to his superior strength, or whether she’d just had the stuffing knocked out of her by the loss of yet another job? Either way, she found herself climbing into the back of the taxi with Xan sliding next to her as they began to drive at speed through the rain, towards the Granchester.
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