Greek Tycoon's Mistletoe Proposal

by Kandy Shepherd

  Finally, the truth—no words required. His quickened breathing told her all she needed to know. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. Her gasp of impatience, of want, no doubt sent the same message to him.

  Then his mouth was on hers, hard, warm, exciting, demanding a response. She parted her lips, welcomed him, kissed him back. It felt as if she’d waited all her life for this. For him. It hadn’t started sweet and gentle and went straight to deep and demanding—an urgent meeting of mouths and tongues, of bodies straining hard against each other. His overcoat was open. She splayed her hands on his hard chest and pushed him to the wall behind him. At last. This. Lukas. Her heart thudded loud and fast. He slid his hands inside her coat, to pull her close—as close as she could be to his body through layers of winter clothes. Her nipples tightened as desire pulsed through her in a wave that demanded more. He held her so close to his body she felt his response, hard and insistent, which further inflamed her. She wanted him.

  ‘Lukas,’ she moaned. ‘Why did we wait so long for this?’

  He stilled. She knew immediately she’d said the wrong thing. ‘We didn’t,’ he said, his voice hoarse and strained. ‘I’ve only known you a week.’

  ‘That’s long enough,’ she said, her voice raspy with desire.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For this,’ she said, lifting her face to his, hungry for his mouth to possess hers again.

  ‘For a one-night stand?’ He broke away from her. ‘Because that’s all I can give you.’

  ‘Not even a two-night stand?’ she asked, trying to lighten the tension, succeeding in making it worse.

  He made his humph sound but it didn’t sound in the slightest bit amusing.

  ‘I scarcely know you but you’re making me feel things I don’t want to feel, feelings I’ve lived without for a long time,’ he said roughly. Was that an edge of panic to his voice? ‘I can’t give you what you want.’

  She could feel a red flush rising on her neck. ‘How do you know what I want? How do you know I don’t just want to drag you into the back seat of the car and make crazy, heart-pounding, toe-tingling love with you—then walk away from you when it’s over?’

  ‘Because you’ll want more.’

  ‘I might. The way I feel about you, once wouldn’t be enough. I mean, if it was really toe-tingling...’ Her voice trailed away at his desolate expression.

  ‘I meant more than I can give. Commitment. Marriage. Presumably children.’

  Ashleigh stared at him in disbelief. ‘I’m sick of people telling me what I want. You included. How can you possibly presume to know what drives me? I want you— I want you desperately. I won’t lie about that.’

  ‘I want you too,’ he muttered.

  ‘But not enough to believe it might be worth taking a risk on me? That there might be more? You’re from a different world but I don’t think this kind of...of feeling comes along very often whether you live in Athens or in London or in Bundaberg. Maybe...maybe only once in a lifetime.’

  She turned her face from him, not wanting him to read the depth of her despair that this might be all she would ever have of him. Knowing she could not even hint at love. ‘Or maybe we’ve made such a good job of pretence it seems real, when...when in reality there’s nothing there.’

  A group of people turned the corner into Tina’s street and headed towards them. Mayfair was full of clubs and restaurants. It was a miracle there’d been no one around to witness their exchange. She stood in silence looking up at Lukas, until the group staggered by with generalised greetings of ‘Merry Christmas’ fading away with them.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she responded in a low choked voice she wondered if the revellers even heard.

  Lukas’s face was set like granite, his mouth a grim, hard line. ‘All my life I haven’t known who was genuine or what their motives were.’

  ‘Well, please don’t dump me in the same basket as people who...who might have injured you.’ Ashleigh cursed her redhead’s temper after the words slipped out—she hadn’t meant to be hurtful.

  She wiped her hand over her forehead. Wrapped her borrowed coat tight across her. Forced away the memory of how exciting his hands had felt on her body through the fine fabric of her dress. How much more she wanted than those brief, passionate moments. ‘I’m sorry. I...I think I had too much champagne and not enough of Gary’s snacks.’

  In truth she’d been too eager to get away from Tina and Gary and to be alone with Lukas to bother with eating. Only to be lifted up on a wild wave of desire and exultation that he wanted her, then to crash painfully back down on the rocks to whimper and nurse her wounds. But she wasn’t the whimpering type. She would not give in to the tears of disappointment that burned behind her eyes. Instead she tossed her head and strode as fast as she could on her stilettos away from him.

  The car was a few houses away, the driver sitting patiently waiting for them. She headed towards it, was aware of Lukas close behind.

  Why did she get the feeling that it was going to be another journey back to Chelsea—she could never think of the townhouse as home—with her and Lukas sitting in grim silence? Especially when thoughts of what she’d told him she’d like to do with him in that very back seat would not be easy to suppress.

  * * *

  Ashleigh checked her watch in the dark. Three a.m. She’d gone straight to her room when they’d got home, wanting to avoid Lukas at all cost. Now she was hungry.

  She used the light from her phone to guide her down the stairs to the kitchen. The elevator might be too noisy and alert Lukas to her presence. If he was still in the house, that was. He could easily have gone out and she wouldn’t have heard him.

  He hadn’t left the house. As she pushed open the door of the basement kitchen she saw him sitting in the same chair where he’d been last time, in a dim pool of light from the pendant lights that hung over the table. He had his head resting on his arms on the table. The back of his neck looked somehow vulnerable—not something she had ever expected to think about Lukas Christophedes. A great rush of tenderness for him swept over her. Oh, she had it bad.

  ‘Lukas,’ she said softly. ‘Are you awake?’

  He nodded.

  This time she didn’t resist the urge to go to him, this the last night she would spend in his house, maybe the last time she would ever see him. She stood behind him, leaned down, circled her arms around him and placed her cheek against his. His stubble was deliciously scratchy against her skin. She breathed in his already so familiar scent. Felt the wave of want for him that she doubted would ever go away. Silently, he reached up to put his hand on her arm.

  ‘You okay?’ she asked, emboldened because she couldn’t sink any lower than she already had with her suggestion of having her way with him in the back seat of his car.

  ‘I felt hungry,’ he said. ‘But I got down here and it all seemed too much effort.’

  ‘I guess you’re used to having staff,’ she said. Staff like her.

  ‘I actually don’t need staff to toast a piece of bread,’ he said gruffly.

  She released him from her arms and stood up straight. ‘The staff is on board now. Let me make you some toast. There’s pizza in the freezer if you want me to—’

  He got up, blocked her with his body from heading to the freezer. ‘You’re not staff.’

  She looked up at him. His eyes were bloodshot and weary. ‘I actually am. You pay Maids in Chelsea for me to be your full-time maid.’

  ‘You are not my maid. Not any more.’ He didn’t touch her, just looked down into her face.

  ‘Then what am I, Lukas? Not your pretend girlfriend—the need for that is over; you’ve done your deal. Not your friend either. I want you too much to keep up the pretence of being a platonic friend. Not even your lover—despite the...the desire we so obviously feel for each other.’

/>   He swore under his breath in Greek. She didn’t understand a word of it, which was probably just as well. ‘I don’t know who you are to me,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t know who the real Ashleigh is. You are such a good actress. You fooled Tina, you confused me. Sometimes I think you could transform my life; other times I’m not certain I know you at all.’

  ‘I have been no one but myself,’ she said. ‘What you’ve seen are different facets of me. I was never dishonest with you. Ever. Except when I hid my attraction for you, not dreaming you felt anything for me. But tonight...well, tonight I bared my heart to you. Yet you can’t seem to trust me.’

  He acknowledged that with a slow nod. ‘I have an issue with trust—especially with women.’ Would he ever share what had put those shadows behind his eyes?

  ‘I’ve got every reason not to trust you either,’ she said. ‘You’re not bad at pretending to be someone you’re not. You made our fake date scenarios as real as I did. But I liked everything I saw about you. I like you, Lukas, as well as being crazy attracted to you.’

  ‘How do I know what is real about you and what is façade?’ he asked. ‘I thought my mother was a devoted wife. Until I walked in on her with another man at one of the decadent parties my parents were famed for in Athens. I discovered both my parents had multiple affairs. My father from the beginning of the marriage. My mother in retaliation when she found out about his. I grew up shielding my mother from my father’s lies—and vice versa. I knew more than a child should know about my parents’ private lives. I learned to hide my feelings. They only stayed together for my sake, so they told me. Though why they are still together now, I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. Not in a million years could she imagine her parents holding decadent parties and finding lovers. In spite of the gravity of it, she smiled to herself. There’d be no holding onto those kinds of secrets in a country town.

  She brushed past him, thrilling in the contact no matter how brief. Put a saucepan of milk on the stove to boil. Hot chocolate might be required if she was ever to sleep again tonight. She put thick slices of wholewheat bread in the toaster.

  ‘That must have been difficult for a kid to cope with.’

  ‘The worst was to come,’ said Lukas with a grimace. ‘A few days before I turned twenty-one I discovered they had totally mismanaged the company that my grandfather had spent his life building up. It was on the verge of bankruptcy and yet they still kept on spending, milking the company to fund their lavish lifestyle.’

  ‘And it was up to you to save it. Still a boy. What had you intended to do instead?’

  ‘All my life I had wanted to be an architect. Growing up in a city where everywhere there are reminders of our great civilisation, I was inspired to make my own mark on the landscape.’

  ‘But you had to give up your studies?’

  ‘Yes. And my dreams.’ Disappointment and regret threaded through his words.

  ‘From what you’ve told me, you’ve made your mark in a different way. You must be proud of what you accomplished.’

  ‘My family were very grateful. They got to keep everything. They didn’t care that I had to remove them as directors.’

  ‘That must have been difficult.’

  ‘You can’t imagine what it was like to unravel the mess they’d made—the lies, the deception, the payments to mistresses, even blackmail.’

  ‘No wonder you have an issue with trust,’ she said. ‘But now, as an adult, having gone through all that, surely you feel able to make your own judgement of who is genuine and who is not?’ Surely you could believe in me?

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps my judgement was distorted.’ He told her about a girl named Céline who had deceived him and broken his heart. ‘I believed in her yet she turned out to be not the person I thought she was. Like my mother. Like my father.’

  ‘We’ve all had our hearts broken,’ Ashleigh said. ‘But we have to learn from it. Not that I’m any great example; look how long I took to do the right thing with Dan. The right thing for him too, I now realise. He’s actually not a bad guy and deserves someone who genuinely loves him. I wasted his time as well as mine because I was scared of getting dumped by the waves.’

  ‘How do I do that?’ He seemed genuinely puzzled.

  ‘You have to listen to your instinct; you have to feel what is right rather than try to intellectualise it or, worse, block it with fear.’

  ‘Like when you’re dancing,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Exactly. The steps are nothing without the emotion. You have to feel the dance.’

  He frowned. ‘How do you trust your feelings when they are so abstract?’

  ‘Is that a trick question?’ She took the milk off the stovetop. ‘Why is a successful billionaire asking me that?’

  He shook his head. ‘I genuinely want to know.’

  ‘Surely you trust your instinct when it comes to business? You couldn’t have got to where you are without doing that.’

  ‘Success involves facts and figures and market analysis and—’

  ‘Knowing when to take a risk or make a gamble?’

  ‘That too,’ he said. ‘I can trust a gamble informed by research. I will never be able to make life-changing decisions based on something as ephemeral as feeling.’

  ‘You’re serious about that?’

  ‘Of course. What other answer could I give?’

  The toast popped out of the toaster. ‘Peanut butter?’ she asked. The pantry was packed with jars of an American brand so she assumed it was his favourite.

  She spread both pieces of toast thickly, cut them in half, put them on a plate and slid it across the table to him.

  ‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not hungry any more,’ she said. ‘A milky drink will do me fine.’

  The illusion of intimacy in the semi-darkened kitchen was seductive. But she could not stay here. She was beginning to believe he was right. He could not give her what she needed. He would destroy her if she kept on throwing herself against an emotional brick wall. Maybe he didn’t know how to love.

  She waited for him to finish his toast. Her drink stayed untouched in the mug.

  She took the plate and the mug to the sink and rinsed them like a good maid should. Delaying. Wanting these last moments alone with him. Until the tension made her feel nauseous.

  ‘Lukas, I’ve packed. I’m leaving in the morning.’

  Was that relief that flashed across his face? Not regret or hurt or anger? She felt as if he had plunged a knife into her heart.

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ he said. It was relief. Her stomach roiled.

  ‘I promised you could stay until after—’

  ‘Christmas. I know. But you have no further use for me. And I...I have to get on with my life.’ Beg me to stay, Lukas, beg me to stay.

  But he didn’t.

  ‘Where will you go?’ he asked. The knife twisted deeper.

  ‘The renewal of vows ceremony is on Wednesday at The Daphne Hotel in Cadogan Gardens. My friend has booked rooms for her bridesmaids for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Thursday is Christmas Eve and I’ll go to Manchester with Sophie.’

  Silence hung between them for a long, uncomfortable moment.

  ‘If you decide you want to go back to Australia for Christmas, I’ll buy you a ticket.’

  She stared at him. ‘What? Why would I want to do that?’

  The expression on his face told her everything.

  ‘After all I’ve told you—you still think I want to go back to Dan? You still don’t trust me? Yet I have more cause not to trust you and I was prepared to take the risk. You just don’t get it, do you, Lukas?’

  She took his hand and placed it on her chest where her heart was furiously pounding. ‘Do you feel that, Lukas
? Do you? That’s my heart pounding for you. Not Dan. Not any other man. But you.’

  She kept his hand over her heart for a long moment. Can’t you feel it breaking, Lukas? Then dropped his hand and turned on her heel.

  * * *

  Ashleigh lay on her back on her bed until the light filtered through the curtains. Then picked up her backpack and the one Bond Street shopping bag she’d vowed to save and left it all behind her. The clothes, the shoes, the watch. Lukas. They had never belonged to her.

  The only thing she would take with her that she hadn’t come with was Lukas’s scarf he had loaned her that first night. Her breath hitched as she buried her face in its soft warmth and breathed in his scent before she wrapped the scarf around her neck and tucked the ends over her heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  YOU JUST WANT to be with that one special person. You feel only half alive when you’re apart.

  Ashleigh’s words echoed through Lukas and made the weight in his chest feel even heavier. Now he knew exactly what she’d meant. Too late he knew what she’d meant.

  She had been gone a day. And it was as if a light had been switched off—not just in his house but in his soul. How could one woman make such an impact on his life in such a short time? She had urged him to feel it—to feel her heartbeat as if it might somehow kick-start his own. But there was a void there. Why was it that some part of him that processed emotions seemed so shut off and inaccessible?

  Until Ashleigh had breezed into his life on a cloud of bubbles and opened just a crack that was slowly, painfully being pushed apart.

  He sat at his desk and tried to work—his great solace, his great distraction. Had he actually told her that work was fun? But the more he tried to focus on the overall strategy for his move into the UK market, the more thoughts of Ashleigh kept slamming into his mind and knocking his concentration sidewards.

  Fun was stumbling on the ice with Ashleigh. Fun was feeling the rhythm of the dance with her. Fun was holding in his arms the loveliest woman he had ever met—lovely in both face and spirit.