by Lynne Graham
For the first time in over a year, when a bout of flu had forced him to deviate from his routine, Xan finished at the office early. He acknowledged that Elvi roused an unusual sense of excitement that was new to his experience. It was nothing he couldn’t handle though, he thought, choosing to be amused by his mood rather than disturbed by it. She was new, she was fresh, there was nothing odd about his interest. He was a normal guy, his libido inflamed by the prospect of a different woman. He texted her the time she would be picked up and smiled.
Elvi was disconcerted when the bell went shortly before eight and she was confronted with Dmitri on the doorstep. ‘Ready?’ he asked flatly, somehow radiating disapproval in waves.
Her complexion flaming, Elvi dug her key into the fancy clutch that matched her ridiculous shoes and preceded him into the lift he had already had waiting for her. ‘What’s your job with Xan?’ she enquired stiffly.
‘I’m the head of his security team. Does Sally know about this?’ he framed.
‘Of course not,’ Elvi parried uncomfortably. ‘I don’t want her to know either.’
The older man released his breath impatiently and said nothing more, but the attitude he emanated had left her in no doubt that he had guessed exactly what her new role in his employer’s life was and she was mortified by the deep sense of shame that engulfed her.
‘What’s wrong?’ Xan heard himself demand as soon as he saw her, because instead of the smile, the warmth that he had somehow vaguely expected from her, she was flushed and stiff as a waxwork with her usual glow absent.
‘Nothing,’ Elvi responded tightly.
‘I hate it when people lie to me,’ Xan told her warningly.
‘Well, if you must know, I feel like the slut I said I wasn’t!’ Elvi rounded on him helplessly, her emotions overpowering her innate practicality. ‘Living in an apartment you own, wearing clothes you paid for!’
Never having been attacked on that score before, Xan tensed, slowly coming to terms with the truth that for the first time in his life he might just have chosen a woman with moral principles. He was utterly spooked by the suspicion. ‘You’re not a slut,’ he breathed in a curt undertone of denial. ‘We have an agreement—’
The reminder steadied Elvi as nothing else could have done. ‘The theft charge?’
‘Dropped. Gone,’ Xan emphasised with relief, expecting that to improve her mood.
But Elvi said nothing, refusing to believe that assurance until she heard it from her mother herself. She knew Sally would have phoned her immediately with such news, not sat on it. Her hands merely tightened around her clutch.
‘I have some jewellery for you to wear,’ Xan continued.
‘Don’t want it,’ she said mutinously.
‘Nonetheless you will wear it as part of your role,’ Xan contradicted, settling a wide shallow box on her lap without apology. ‘You’re being childish and difficult and that’s not what I want from you.’
Possibly that was the wake-up call Elvi felt she needed at the moment. She had agreed to the mistress role and there was no room to wriggle out of the arrangement again. Gritting her teeth together, she opened the box on a diamond necklace and earrings that flashed like white fire as the streetlights illuminated the limo’s interior. She pushed her hair over one shoulder and reached for the necklace but Xan got there before her.
‘Allow me,’ he breathed, tugging her round by the shoulder to put her back to him, so close to her that the sheer heat of his body hit her bare back like a burn inflicted by the sun and she froze as he bent over her to attach the necklace at her nape.
That close, he smelt amazing, a dynamite combination of clean, crisp masculinity, exotic cologne and an element that was uniquely his own but which reminded her of fresh air and the woods. The startling wonder of his scent filtered through her like an aphrodisiac, shocking her afresh. Her breath hitching in her dry throat, she shifted away again fast and fumbled for the earrings to attach them.
‘You’re very jumpy for a woman I have yet to touch,’ Xan observed.
‘This situation is new to me,’ Elvi pointed out nervously.
‘It’s not a situation. It’s a relationship like any other.’ Xan surprised himself by saying the word he always avoided because he knew it wasn’t a relationship, it was purely a sexual connection.
Now you’re giving her mixed messages, he reproved himself immediately. No, he was simply trying to make her relax before she wrecked his good mood. He had set this up; he could hardly complain about her being different from the kind of women he was accustomed to when he had known that from the start. He was no softie with women but he was always rational, fair, he assured himself until he tried to apply that statement to the manner in which he had acquired Elvi, and the oddest sense of discomfiture assailed him for the first time ever in a woman’s presence.
Elvi shot him an anxious glance, big blue eyes as easily read as a headline. There was a sort of strange innocence about her, almost as if she was expecting him to break out a whip and chains. Stubborn mouth quirking, he shelved that sudden unlikely suspicion, choosing instead to recall the moment she had looked back at him a couple of months back in the apartment foyer. She had wanted him then and he had known it, was way too experienced in that department with women to be mistaken. And now he had made it possible for her to have him and she ought to be pleased about that, shouldn’t she? He was pleased. Why wasn’t she? Why did women have to be so blasted irrational and changeable? And since when had he cared when one was? He was wasting way too much time speculating on her behaviour and it was inappropriate with a sexual partner.
He took her to a very exclusive party in a London town house with a man playing jazz at a grand piano in the drawing room amid a crush of very well-dressed chattering guests. Xan was treated like a golden god from the moment he arrived, drinks brought, seats found, his every opinion sought. He did once say, ‘This is Elvi,’ but for the most part, she was studiously ignored, presumably because his habit of having a mistress as a partner at such engagements was well known and she was deemed to be beneath the notice of such wealthy people.
‘Who is she?’ she heard one woman whisper behind her seat.
‘Not his usual type,’ another remarked.
‘Fabulous hair though. Dyed, of course—’
And Elvi had been horribly tempted to twist around and disabuse the women with a tart response, but she had resisted the urge, preferring to be ignored while she had to listen to boring financial discussions and Xan kept an unexpectedly possessive arm wrapped round her even while they were sitting down, as if he feared she might bolt for the door.
Perhaps he had ESP, she reflected ruefully, because she was becoming increasingly apprehensive about the end of the evening. She had checked her phone repeatedly, even texting her mother to ask how she was, and if Xan had dropped the theft charge the fact hadn’t yet been shared with the older woman. How was she supposed to trust him? How was she supposed to know that he had done what he had promised?
‘That was a mind-numbing evening,’ Xan commented, surprising her as he lounged back in a corner of the limousine. ‘I hate it when people fuss over me like that and expect tips for free—’
‘The price of success?’ Elvi quipped.
As she was one of the benefits, Xan savoured, watching her with unashamed hunger. He had used his power to capture her and right at that moment he had not a single regret. She was a natural beauty and blue was definitely her colour, lighting up those eyes to brilliance. The wondrous curves were simply the icing on a very tempting cake and tonight she was finally his. He had been tempted to cut the party and stay in, had made himself go to convince himself that he was still in control of the need that made him ache with excitement in her radius. Not cool, not cool at all...but now he didn’t have to be any longer.
Elvi was not unaware of the way Xan was watching her, could only compare th
e blaze of those slumberous amber eyes to a panther lazily eying his next meal. Her entire body felt hot and scratchy, her breasts heavy, the space between her thighs tingling and hollow. She knew it was how he made her feel and told herself she ought to be grateful for that in the circumstances. Suppose he had not appealed to her in any way? How could she possibly have made such an agreement?
And exactly how was she now supposed to tell him that there was no way she was sharing that bed with him tonight?
Nerves gripped her fast as he accompanied her into the lift and she knew she had to say something. She cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘Look... I have something to say—’
‘Say it,’ Xan urged impatiently, his lean brown hands lifting to come down on her small shoulders and urge her closer even as the lift doors whirred back.
‘We...er...can’t. Not tonight anyway,’ she warned him with hot cheeks.
Xan groaned out loud. ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ he demanded, practically dragging her out of the lift and slotting his own key into the front door of the apartment.
‘It was...difficult—’
‘Surely you could have rearranged the pills or something? I would have sent you to the doctor, had I known,’ Xan growled, pressing her into the apartment and leaning back against the door to close it, his entire brain preoccupied with what he could do, what he couldn’t and the kind of frustration he had never experienced before engulfing him hard because he was literally burning for her.
As Elvi registered what Xan had taken from her declaration, her whole body lit up with embarrassment because her menstrual cycle was something she had never discussed with any man and the sudden realisation that his access to her was likely to include that kind of personal information appalled her.
‘No, you misunderstood me,’ she said swiftly. ‘It’s not that—’
‘Diavole...you’re driving me crazy here, koukla mou,’ Xan growled, curving both his hands to her triangular face to gaze down into her beautiful but evasive eyes. ‘What is it?’
But he didn’t wait for her response. He fell for the enticement of those soft pink sultry lips, nibbled sexily along the bottom one, groaned out loud as she gasped into his mouth and bundled her right off her feet to kiss her.
The devastating urgency of that first plunging, ravaging kiss sent an earthquake of burning hunger travelling through Elvi right to the very heart of her. She hadn’t thought, hadn’t dreamt, hadn’t even imagined that she was capable of feeling anything that powerful. But that hunger was like a seductive, sweet-talking infiltrator in her treacherous body, battling every thought, every other instinct and sweeping the floor with her. He blew her away with the sheer raw energy of his mouth on hers, unlocking her defences, connecting with her in a way she had never connected to a man before, making her want him and his body so badly, she felt shell-shocked by the experience, and that very small awareness reawakened her brain again and reminded her of what she had to do...what she had to say...
In a valiant effort, Elvi struggled out of Xan’s powerful arms, sliding down the front of his lean, strong body, learning that there was not a shade of doubt that he was as ready for her and that bed as he could ever be, and embarrassment and regret washed over Elvi in a horrible wave.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said jerkily, stepping back from Xan, much as if he were contagious. ‘But I can’t do this yet—’
Xan surfaced faster to study her in disbelief. ‘Can’t?’ he queried. ‘But you said—’
‘You didn’t give me the chance to explain,’ Elvi reminded him resolutely, struggling to rise above her chagrined regret over her wanton weakness of body and brain. ‘My mother hasn’t told me yet that the charge has been dropped and nothing, absolutely nothing, is happening between us until I receive that confirmation from her—’
Incredulous as only a young, handsome billionaire could be at meeting with the word no for the first time, Xan raked a slightly shaky hand through his tousled black hair. ‘This is you joking...right?’ he pressed hopefully.
‘No, I’m only returning the same favour you gave me,’ Elvi assured him without the smallest sense of triumph. ‘You said you wouldn’t act and drop the theft charge until I moved in here and I had to do that. Now I’m saying that when my mother tells me the charge has been dropped, I’m yours but not before it—’
A line of dark colour flashed over Xan’s exotic cheekbones. ‘That’s outrageous!’ he shot back at her angrily. ‘The charge has been dropped! I don’t break my promises. It’s scarcely my fault if the police haven’t yet got around to informing her—’
‘It’s nobody’s fault,’ Elvi cut in, trying to pour oil on troubled water a little late in the day, she sensed, registering the blaze of frustrated fury smouldering in Xan’s amazingly eloquent gaze and the fierce clenched set of his strong jaw. ‘But it’s the way it is. It’s my only safeguard in this arrangement—’
Xan was so outraged, he swung away from her and breathed in deep to muster self-discipline. He wanted to behave like a caveman, gather her up and throw her bodily on the bed and keep her there until she understood who she was dealing with. But he knew he couldn’t behave like that, which infuriated him even more. Her only safeguard, he reflected in fuming disagreement. Did she really think he was about to break his word when she was standing there with a small fortune in diamonds around her neck and living in his apartment?
Or was it more payback time than safeguard? Payback for the manner in which he had forced her to immediately move in? That made better sense to him, integrating as it did the kind of cunning slyness he hated in her sex but had often experienced. There had been a stepmother who’d tried to seduce him to hit back at his father for his infidelity. There had been mistresses who tried to play games calculated to increase his interest in them, several who told him outrageous lies in an effort to charm more money or jewels out of him. So great was his ire at the suspicion that he had been played by Elvi, he couldn’t even bring himself to look at her again or trust himself to speak.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elvi muttered in the pulsing silence, her hands twisting nervously together in the tense atmosphere. ‘I should have told you when I got into the car earlier but I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t feel comfortable talking about having sex with you because you’re a stranger. I don’t suppose you understand but it would be a lot easier if you would allow me to get to know you first.’
Xan’s lean brown hands clenched into fists. ‘I don’t get to know women I have sex with. That’s not my style,’ he admitted grittily, involuntarily forced out of silence by that naïve little speech of hers. ‘Maybe I missed out on asking the one question I should’ve asked in my office last week...are you a prude? Because, to be brutally blunt, you sound like a hell of a prude and that’s not going to work for me at all.’
Very pale now, Elvi chewed her lower lip and decided not to respond because silence was safer. Not a prude, a virgin, she almost said, and who could tell how he would react to a surprise like that? Perhaps he was already thinking of letting her go again but would that mean he would reinstate the theft charge? Could he even do that? She had no idea and she was scared and apprehensive, plunged into a relationship she had not the smallest idea how to handle with a man that said stuff that chilled her to the marrowbone.
Xan strode back out of the apartment, still maddeningly taut with an arousal unlike anything he had ever felt before and unnerved by it. Let her go, his intelligence told him, cut her free now before it gets even more messy. He wanted her but she could be a disaster waiting to blow up in his face.
He ignored his security team’s open surprise at his almost immediate reappearance, climbed into his limousine and tried to think about walking away fast from Elvi Cartwright because she had taken him to a level of rage he had never felt before and that was disturbing.
Or merely normal? he reasoned, given his sexual frustration. The very last thing he
had expected was to end the night with a cold shower. He was beginning to suspect that Elvi might not have even indulged in a one-night stand. Some nauseating romance with a long-term boyfriend struck him as the more likely base of her sexual experience, he decided cynically. She wanted him to get to know her? Was she a throwback to the Victorian era? Where did she get a weird idea like that when he had asked her to be his mistress?
* * *
Elvi got into the vast bed alone and shivered, still shaken by that confrontation and the kiss that had preceded it. When his mouth had crashed down on hers, she had been overwhelmed by his electrifying sensuality, her physical responses wildly out of her control, but she had pulled back, mustered her strength and finally said what had to be said. And not surprisingly, Xan had been furious because she should have made her position clear at the start of the evening, not at the end, she acknowledged guiltily.
Xan Ziakis wasn’t accustomed to the word no. He was selfish, arrogant and obsessed with sex. Well, work and sex, she adjusted ruefully. He had expected to take her straight to bed and she had dealt clumsily with those expectations, probably because she was the prude he had labelled her. But the concept of sharing her body with someone she didn’t even know properly had proved too much for Elvi to cope with on the spot. When she couldn’t even imagine taking off her clothes for him, she was in trouble and way outside her comfort zone. Why, oh, why had she ever believed that she could give him what he wanted? That she could simply have sex as if it meant nothing?
And even more inexplicably, why was she just a little disappointed that he hadn’t managed to persuade her to change her mind? He hadn’t even tried to persuade her, had he? Had simply announced that she didn’t suit him, rejecting her because she had dared to reject him. Was that it, then? Were they over before they had even begun?
CHAPTER FOUR
SALLY CARTWRIGHT PHONED her daughter mid-morning the next day. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened,’ she burbled in an excited surge. ‘The theft charge has been dropped. No explanation, nothing, just the assurance that the complaint has been withdrawn and the police have no further interest.’